IRAN POLICE CLASHES WITH OPPOSITION AT MEMORIAL SERVICE

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.12.2009 21:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Iran police clashed with mourners at a memorial
service in Isfahan on Wednesday for dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri, arresting more than 50 and beating women and
children, reports said.

Hundreds of police and security force members early morning surrounded
the Seyed mosque in Isfahan where the service was to be held and
prevented mourners from entering, sparking fierce clashes, opposition
websites said.

The mourners were shouting slogans in support of Iran’s opposition
Green Movement and police fired tear gas to disperse them, website
Rahesabz.net. said.

The latest crackdown on the opposition comes a day after its major
leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was sacked from his post as president of
the Academy of Art, which the architect and painter had headed for
10 years.

Montazeri, a fierce critic of the clerical regime he helped create
and a vocal backer of the opposition, died aged 87 on Saturday.

His funeral in the holy city of Qom on Monday saw hundreds of thousands
of mourners pour onto the streets, effectively turning the ceremony
into a massive anti-government protest which ended in clashes between
police and mourners.