Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s Student Day speech was interrupted by students chanting in supporting of Iran’s 2009 Green Movement leaders. While Rouhani handled the chants well and attempted to spin them in his favor, his administration faced accusations of cancelling the speeches of conservative figures at other universities.

Student Day in Iran is the anniversary of the 1953 murder of three University of Tehran students under the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. While the day has held various meanings over the years, in the last couple, the day has been mostly used by students to express support for student activists and for Green Movement leaders Mir Hussein Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest for nearly four years.

Short video clips of the students chanting during Rouhani’s speech were shared widely on Facebook, and even some Iranian news agencies published pictures of students holding posters quoting Mousavi’s famous line, “My red line is the rights of the people.” Mousavi has maintained that the results of the 2009 elections were fraudulent.

One of the more popular chants during Rouhani’s speech went, “1,000 days have passed, Mousavi has not returned.” In the linked video, conservative students chant “Death to Mousavi” in response, though they are shouted down by the larger pro-Mousavi crowd.