In an iconic photograph of anti-government demonstrations in Iran, a student with flowing black hair and a headband held aloft the bloody T-shirt of a wounded protester. After his face appeared on the cover of The Economist magazine in July 1999, Ahmad Batebi paid dearly for it, enduring nearly a decade of imprisonment and torture before fleeing into exile.

On Tuesday, as he watched the anti-government protests in Iran from Virginia, Batebi described a sense of dread mixing with happiness. “Every society has to make their own version of freedom and democracy, and that is what the Iranian people are doing right now,” he said. “But I know that people are being beaten, some are going to jail and some will be killed.”

The Iranian government tolerated student-led uprisings in 1999 and 2003 for only a few days before unleashing fearsome crackdowns, sending Basij vigilantes onto campuses, where they flung a few students from the windows; bloodied as many heads as they could with bricks, chains or truncheons; and jailed scores.

Similar intimidation tactics have been on display over the past few days with little result, as Iranian state news reports of seven people killed in various cities did not deter another major anti-government rally on Tuesday. This time, analysts say, the government will have trouble bringing about a swift, sharp end to the demonstrations in the same way it had shut down previous eruptions. First, there is the sheer size of these demonstrations, with protests that are not limited to students, but cut across generations and economic classes. Second, there is a more pronounced leadership centered around the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who has adopted an openly hard-edged attitude toward the government. Third, the current crisis was inspired by common anger over a national election, not the more narrow issues students took to heart.

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