Student faces down Iranian leader

AN Iranian maths student has become an unlikely hero to some of his countrymen for daring to criticise the country’s most powerful man to his face.

Mahmoud Vahidnia has received support from government opponents for the challenge — unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison.

But Vahidnia has so far suffered no repercussions from the confrontation at a question-and-answer session between Khamenei and students at Tehran’s Sharif Technical University. In fact, Iran’s clerical leadership appears to be touting the incident as a sign of its tolerance — so much so that some Iranians at first believed the 20-minute exchange was staged by the government, though opposition commentators are now convinced Vahidnia was the real thing.