2nd day of student protests rock Iran

TEHRAN, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- University students at many Iranian universities held a second day of demonstrations Tuesday, with violent confrontations on many campuses, observers said.

The protests pitted students who oppose the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against police and the semi-official Basji militia, The New York Times reported.

In contrast to demonstrations immediately after the June presidential election, many protesters appeared to be calling for an end to theocratic government, the report said. They burned pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Khomeini, the 1979 revolutionary leader. Some students waved Iranian flags with the emblem for Allah excised.

More than 200 people were arrested Monday.

"So far, we have shown restraint," Gholam Mohseni-Ejehi, the chief prosecutor, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. "Anyone who in any way endangers security must be dealt with."

Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and lead opposition candidate for president in June, was barred from attending protests Monday. A group of men, some of them masked, confronted him outside his office Tuesday, chanting slogans supporting the government.

"You are on a mission -- do your job, threaten me, beat me, kill me," Mousavi said after facing off against the men, ignoring advice from his own security guards.