“10,000 JOIN STUDENT PROTEST IN TEHERAN:”

More than 10,000 people defied riot police to gather outside Teheran university in a show of support for reformist students and a sign of a wider dissatisfaction with the regime.

This was by far the largest coming together of ordinary people in Teheran since student protests began a month ago, although in these difficult times it had to be a demonstration pretending not to demonstrate as police kept people moving along the pavements.

When groups began chanting slogans such as “Political prisoners must be freed” the riot police would draw their batons, forcing protesters to scatter down side streets.

It was the first time that the students had received such a display of public support, and a sign of a more general disillusionment with the authorities.

Bring it on. But here’s the key passage:

Among the crowd were many plain-clothes security agents who bundled dozens of people into police cars and videotaped faces in the crowd. At one point a security agent was surrounded by a catcalling crowd and defended himself with a can of pepper spray.

As he hurried down the street followed by jeers, the crowd began to chant, “Thank you, police!” to the regular police, who stood by and did not overtly harass people. The officers smiled back. One of them helped an injured old man out of the fray.

The cracks are showing.