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Columbia turns into a protest field during Ahmadinejad's visit to speak at the university

by Anup Kaphle | September 24, 2007 at 02:17 pm

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Students protested, cheered and booed as Ahmadinejad visited Columbia University to speak at the World Leaders Forum today.

See more pictures from today.

Several groups protested outside Columbia University yesterday.

But somehow, Ahmadinejad managed to get away without answering most of the critical questions. Most of his responses to a question would be completely irrelevant or a question he would pose back to the moderator. Nothing anything that is not expected of Ahmadinejad but some students believed that he was going to engage in a debate with student diplomatically.

The quote of the day was: "We don't have homosexuals in Iran like in your country." It was especially funny because a group of students had put out posters depicting execution of homosexuals in Iran, all over the campus.

Ahmadinejad seemed upset that Columbia University President Lee Bollinger called him "a petty and cruel dictator" and that he did not have the "intellectual courage" to answer the questions posed by him. In response to Bollinger's remarks, Ahmadinejad said: "In our country, we treat our guests with respect."

Quite surprisingly, a group of people from "Jews United Against Zionism" were demonstrating outside the university in favor of the Iranian president. "I don't understand why everyone hates him," one of them said. "Do you know where President Ahmadinejad is because I would like to speak to him?"

Although a large group of students were in favor of him coming to speak on campus, they were disappointed that he did not engage in a dialogue with students. "He said the same things over and over again," one student said. "It was actually dangerous that he was applauded for some of his ridiculous remarks."