Photo Collection from Tehran

The Hot Summer of 1999

Following two decades of an absolutist-theocratic rule in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the summer of 1999 the streets of the capital Tehran were once more crowded with hundreds of youths and students who called for change and reform. When President Khatami, a reformist clergyman, was elected in 1997, everybody was convinced that the days of clerical supremacy were numbered. But the conservatives soon dealt an electoral setback to the reformists by calling on pressure groups and vigilantes to withdraw public confidence for the reforms.

On July 8, 1999, following closure of a reformist-oriented newspaper, students launched a campaign for political freedom that included freedom of speech. Some 200 students staged a peaceful protest in front of their dormitories in Tehran. Security forces, anti-riot police, and some vigilantes soon surrounded the dormitory. Supported by the police force, some 400 individuals (who were not in uniforms of any kind) broke into the dormitories, systematically ransacked student rooms, and assaulted students indiscriminately. They beat the students and threw some of them out of windows. They also detained many of the students.

The serious attack lasted for a few days and left scores injured and one dead. Spontaneous mass protests followed the premediated attack on the dormitory. Student demands kept changing with the developments. In the days following the attack, as the government seemed slow to respond to their demands, the students became bolder and more frustrated, using more openly critical, radical slogans. Responding to the increasing violence from the security forces and vigilantes, student slogans also became more violent. Indeed, this was the first time since the revolution of 1979 that crowds of students and young people took the violence into the streets of the capital. Although the security force finally crushed the movement, the attack had a lasting impact on the political development in Iran.

By photographing this event, Jamshid, an Iranian photographer, created an important source for those interested in contemporary social movements in Iran. Jamshid's collection, which is now housed in the IISH, contains 120 photographs that record the day-to-day events in the hot summer of 1999 Tehran.