The Interior Ministry announced yesterday that no student body had applied for permission to hold a ceremony on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Tehran University dormitory incident.

For the past week, several Persian language dailies have been focussing on the incident which occurred on July 9, 1999 at the Tehran University dormitory.

The dormitory incident was followed by a series of violent demonstrations that continued for several days. The incident also created several problems in the country, such as division among the students and certain political factions.

It was expected that those who were behind the unwanted incident would hold a meeting to focus attention to different aspects of the incident.

They are doing so in their newspapers and are writing a series of articles on the incident.

The Persian language daily *** Norouz *** said on July 4 that students would hold a ceremony in the Tehran University dormitory to give a "peace and friendship" award to President Mohammad Khatami to mark the occasion.

The daily dubbed the day "national day against violence." It claimed that the ceremonies would be organized with the cooperation of the Office for Consolidation of Unity (OCU), a student organization.

Since the Interior Ministry has announced that none of the student organizations or political factions have applied for permission to hold such ceremonies, this means that there will be no ceremonies. So, why was such a hue and cry raised by certain print media?

They even mentioned President Khatami's name in their propaganda war against their opponents.