Thursday, July 30, 2009

Riot police clashed with mourners


Riot police clashed with mourners gathering at Tehran's Behesht-e Zanra cemetery to honor the protesters killed by Revolutionary Guards and Basijj thugs when they rose up against the fraudulent June 12 presidential election, DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report. Breaking up the crowds gathered in the graveyard, Thursday, July 30, police forced opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to leave as he approached the grave Neda Agha Soltan, the student who died of wounds inflicted by the Basijj at a protest rally. They then pushed him into his car which drove off at speed. Witnesses report several injured in the clashes. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources reported earlier:

Popular anger against the regime has been further stoked by the official claim that only 20 people died in the street rallies and by the abuses suffered by the hundreds of jailed detainees, one of whom Sohran Aarabi has died under torture in prison. He was the son of one of the presidential candidates Mohsen Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guards commander.

Ceremonies marking the 40th day of a death are an Islamic tradition, but opposition leaders have been encouraged by the declining power of the election winner, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to push harder in the hope of bringing him down. The founder of the Islamic revolution Aytollah Khomeini used the Fortieth Day mourning ceremonies as a tactic to inflame mobs against the ruling shah. The incumbent rulers, well aware of the political power of these rallies to shake their regime, have banned all assemblies - even for religious purposes.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi received no answer to their application from the interior ministry for a permit to call a special prayer meeting at the Great Mossalla Mosque in Tehran, although they promised it there would be no shouted slogans.

DEBKAfile's sources report that when the opposition leaders saw security forces preparing to thwart mass ingress to the Great Mosque, they withdrew their request so as to avoid further bloodshed and instead called for a National Day of Mourning around the graves of the protest victims at the main Tehran cemetery.

The regime will put 20 suspected rioters on trial from Saturday after a first batch of detainees was released Tuesday and a "considerable number" would be freed Friday, the Iranian News Agency reported.

Comment: This is an evolving story-we should al stay tuned-rapidly morphing into a new direction.

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