Iran's student movement bowed to pressure from ruling...

Iran's student movement bowed to pressure from ruling hardliners and called a halt to two weeks of nationwide protests in defence of a liberal academic sentenced to death. Student leaders said heads of universities had refused to give permission for more campus rallies following an order by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that was made public at Friday prayers. Two demonstrations planned in Tehran were cancelled. Some 10,000 members of the Islamist Basij militia held an anti-US rally outside the former US embassy in Tehran aimed at encouraging the students to desist. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who stills retains considerable power, showed his hand for the first time in a speech urging the Basij to be on guard. "Satan," he said, referring to the US, was "hiring its cavalry and foot soldiers to abuse the situation". Student leaders did not rule out the possibility that protests would start again, depending on the outcome of the courts review. Reformist parties supporting President Mohammad Khatami also urged the students to act with caution, fearing that unrest would give hardline clerics a pretext to declare a state of emergency. Students said their protests revealed a widening rift between their more radical demands and the reformist parties in parliament.