Iran students protest over alleged sexual harassment

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Iranian students staged a sit-in protest after seizing a senior university official they accused of sexual harassment and demanding he be punished, the Etemad newspaper said on Monday.

The newspaper said the students in the north-western city of Zanjan broke into the office of the vice-chancellor they said had molested a woman when she visited him to resolve a problem with the university's disciplinary body.

"Angry students ... handed the vice-chancellor over to the university's security officers after they found he had sought to harass the student," the daily said, quoting a student. Three thousand of them then staged a sit-in on Saturday night, demanding he be punished and the board of directors resign.

Higher Education Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the incident, a rare episode of student protest in the conservative Islamic Republic.

University officials told the daily that calm had been restored at the campus.

In 2006, students at Tehran's Amir Kabir University burned pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and threw firecrackers in an apparent effort to disrupt a speech he was making.

Rights activists and Western diplomats say pro-reform students have been among groups targeted in what they say is a crackdown on dissenting voices under Ahmadinejad.

The president, elected in 2005 pledging a return to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution, says the government supports free speech and welcomes constructive opposition.

In April, university students in the northwestern city of Tabriz went on a hunger strike to protest against what they called strict rules imposed on universities.

In 1999, students calling for change were at the centre of violent protests over the closure of a pro-reform newspaper, the worst unrest since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)