 |
Several people were injured in the incident, but
the protest itself was largely peaceful [AFP] |
|
An Iranian state radio channel has reported that seven people were killed after an attack on a military post close to a rally disputing the results of a presidential election.
The violence occurred on Monday in the capital, Tehran, amid protests against the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Radio Payam reported on Tuesday.
“Several thugs wanted to attack a military post and vandalise public property in the vicinity of Azadi Square,” the radio said, referring to the site of the rally.
“Unfortunately, seven people were killed and several others wounded.”
Also on Tuesday, the Iranian authorities arrested two prominent reformists, Saeed Hajjarian and Mohammad Ali Abtahi, their aides said.
The arrests came amid mounting unrest in the capital as Mousavi supporters pledged to continue their demonstrations.
Ahmadinejad supporters said they too planned a demonstration on Tuesday at the same location, raising the possibility of further clashes between the rival camps.
State television reported that Iran’s highest legislative body, the Guardian Council, was willing to recount the votes and that the recount may lead to changes in cadidates’ tallies.
Ahmadinejad in Russia
The news of the deaths came as Iran’s president arrived in Russia for a security conference, despite the popular protests at home against a vote in which the authorities declared him the winner.
Ahmadinejad landed in Yakaterinburg for the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation (SCO), in which Iran has observer status.
“We welcome the fact that elections took place, we welcome the new president on Russian soil and see it as symbolic that he made his first visit to Russia,” Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told reporters after Ahmadinejad’s arrival.
“This allows hope for progress in bilateral relations,” he said.
Ahmadinejad’s trip had been scheduled for Monday but he postponed it in the wake of the protests.
Violent clashes
Initial reports suggested that armed men loyal to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard opened fire during the protest rally in Azadi Square which was attended by tens of thousands of people.
 |
| Police mingled among the protesters in an attempt to control those attending [EPA] |
An Associated Press photographer in the square said one person had been shot dead and several others appeared to be seriously wounded.The incident occurred in front of a local base of the Basij, Iran’s volunteer paramilitary force, which had been set ablaze.
Many at the rally were supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the election candidate defeated in Friday’s poll.
Mousavi addressed the rally, his first public appearance since his defeat.
Clashes were reported hours after the demonstration, which was held in defiance of a ban imposed by the interior ministry, began.
Police fired tear gas as dozens of protesters set several motorbikes on fire.
“There has been sporadic shooting out there … I can see people running,” said a reporter of Iran’s English-language Press TV who was at the demonstration.
Peaceful protest
The demonstration had been largely peaceful until the shooting.
Robert Fisk, a writer and journalist who was observing the rally, told Al Jazeera that he had heard shots being fired and saw demonstrators break into a run, but that things had continued to be largely peaceful.
“It’s extraordinary to me that anyone would start shooting at such a huge crowd of people,” he said.
“Especially people who have been continuously non-violent all the way from the start of this march, which has of course been prohibited so I suppose that will be the excuse.”
Fisk said that not all the protesters were supporting Mousavi and that many were simply making a statement about the vote.
“I don’t think they [the demonstrators] are all supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi, they are objecting to the presence of Ahmadinejad as the president. They don’t believe he won those votes,” he said.
The official results of the election gave Ahmadinejad 63 per cent of the vote and Mousavi 34 per cent, figures Mousavi has dismissed as a “dangerous charade”.
Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Tehran, said several different police units were at the rally.
“There were several kinds of police there; riot police were easily distinguishable from the rest of them with their gear and vests and helmet,” he said.
“There were normal police, with their green outfits. There were also plainclothes police who you could only recognise because they were carrying wireless communicators. And there were also others, who were just walking but looked like they didn’t belong to the rally.”
Poll backlash
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Monday ordered officials to look into the complaints against the veracity of the election.
The 12-man Guardian Council said it would rule within 10 days on the two official complaints it had received from Mousavi and Mohsen Rezaie, another losing candidate.
 |
Further protests by rival camps have been planned for Tuesday [AFP]
|
The council, headed by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who endorsed Ahmadinejad before the vote, vets election candidates and must formally approve the results for the outcome to stand.Earlier in the day, about 400 pro-reform students, many wearing green face masks to conceal their identity, gathered at a mosque in Tehran University and demanded Ahmadinejad’s resignation.
Iran has faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the polls.
Barack Obama, the US president, said on Monday that he was deeply troubled by the post-election violence.
Saying the world was inspired by Iranian demonstrators, he added that free speech and the democratic process must be respected.
France and Germany summoned the respective Iranian ambassadors to account for events. |
The comments came 
It was only a month ago that Secretary 
Peace and Justice Post 
Police crack down on Iran protests
June 21, 2009in the streets of the capital, Tehran [AFP]
Riot police in Iran have used tear gas, water cannon and batons to disperse about 3,000 people attempting to protest over the disputed presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president.
Witnesses said that dozens of people were hospitalised after being beaten by police and pro-government militia in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday.
“Lots of guards on motorbikes closed in on us and beat us brutally,” one protester said.
“As we were running away the Basiji [militia] were waiting in side alleys with batons, but people opened their doors to us trapped in alleys.”
Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a defeated reformist candidate, had planned to stage a rally in the city’s Revolutionary Square, but arrived to find their way blocked by police.
A witness told Al Jazeera that police were turning people away.
“The roads were pretty much blocked by the militia, they were out with retractable metal batons. It looked like they were very frantically trying to keep people from the area,” he said.
Protests ‘quelled’
Amateur video of Saturday’s protests, which could not be independently verified, showed dozens of Iranians running down a street after police fired tear gas.
Other footage showed protesters trying to give first aid to a badly injured woman in the street.
The protesters apparently threw stones at the police and set fires in the streets.
Al Jazeera’s Alireza Ronaghi, reporting from Tehran, said that the protests had largely been quelled by Saturday evening.
“The presence of security forces were very high, they definitely wanted to take back the streets of Tehran … right now I don’t expect that many protesters are concentrated anywhere in Tehran,” he said.
He said that state television had quoted the head of Iran’s police force as thanking the Iranian people for not taking to the streets and taking the police warnings seriously.
As the clashes took place, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up outside the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979, injuring at least two people, local news agencies reported.
As night fell, the protesters kept up their show of defiance shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) from the rooftops, a deliberate echo of a move made during the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Barack Obama, the US president, condemned the violence and urged Tehran to allow Mousavi’s supporters to stage peaceful protests.
“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” he said.
“We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”
Nick Spicer, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington DC, said: “It’s his [Obama] strongest language to date.
“He’s putting the blame for the violence squarely on the Iranian government saying that the world is watching what is going on in Iran, not just that the United States is watching
“Basically he is calling the whole world as a witness to what’s going on in Iran.
“He’s trying to make this not an Iran-America thing, but a global human rights argument that he’s putting to the leaders of Iran.”
‘Ready for martyrdom’
In a statement posted on the website of his Kalemeh newspaper, Mousavi repeated his demand for the elections results to be annulled and hit out at a speech by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
“If this huge volume of cheating and changing the votes … which has hurt people’s trust, is presented as the very evidence of the lack of cheating, then it will butcher the republican aspect of the system and the idea that Islam is incompatible with a republic will be proven,” he said.
Anoushka Marashlian, an independent Middle East analyst, told Al Jazeera: “I think the momentum would be very difficult to maintain now because of the nature of the protests that have become more violent.
“They are not only defying the results of the elections but they are now perceived to be defying the directions of the supreme leader, and so, in essence, questioning the foundation of the Islamic Republic,” she said.
In a sermon on Friday, Khamenei ruled out any fraud in the June 12 vote and stressed there could be no doubting the re-election of Ahmadinejad.
An unnamed ally of Mousavi told the Reuters news agency that the former prime minister has said he would continue his fight and was “ready for martyrdom”.
Earlier on Saturday, Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, another defeated presidential candidate had declined to meet the Guardian Council, Iran’s highest legislative body, concerning 646 complaints of voting irregularities in the poll.
State television quoted a council spokesman as saying that the Guardian Council had expressed its readiness to “randomly” recount up to 10 per cent of the ballots.
The contested result gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a tally of about 63 per cent, to Mousavi’s 34 per cent.
Share this:
Tags:Iran, police, protests, repression
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Iran, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »