Thousands Join Renewed Protests In Tehran

Witnesses say Opposition Supporters Met with Tear Gas, Clubs in 1st Demos Since Government Crackdown

(AP)  Thousands of protesters streamed down avenues of the capital Thursday, chanting "death to the dictator" and defying security forces who fired tear gas and charged with batons, witnesses said.

Turning garbage bins into burning barricades and darting through choking clouds of tear gas, the opposition made its first foray into the streets in nearly two weeks in an attempt to revive mass demonstrations that were crushed in Iran's postelection turmoil.

Iranian authorities had promised tough action to prevent the marches, which supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been planning for days through the Internet. Heavy police forces deployed at key points in the city ahead of the marches, and Tehran's governor vowed to "smash" anyone who heeded the demonstration calls.

In some places, police struck hard. Security forces chased after protesters, beating them with clubs on Valiasr Street, Tehran's biggest north-south avenue, witnesses said.

Women in headscarves and young men dashed away, rubbing their eyes in pain as police fired tear gas, in footage aired on state-run Press TV. In a photo from Thursday's events in Tehran obtained by The Associated Press outside Iran, a woman with her black headscarf looped over her face thrust her fist into the air in front of a garbage bin that had been set on fire.

In another image, a man dropped to his knees, overcome by the effects of tear gas.

But the clampdown was not total. At Tehran University, a line of police blocked a crowd from reaching the gates of the campus, but then did not move to disperse them as the protesters chanted "Mir Hossein" and "death to the dictator" and waved their hands in the air, witnesses said. The crowd grew to nearly 1,000 people, the witnesses said.

"Police, protect us," some of the demonstrators chanted, asking the forces not to move against them.

The protesters appeared to reach several thousand, but their full numbers were difficult to determine, since marches took place in several parts of the city at once and mingled with passers-by. There was no immediate word on arrests or injuries.

It did not compare to the hundreds of thousands who joined the marches that erupted after the June 12 presidential election, protesting what the opposition said were fraudulent results. But it was a show of determination despite a crackdown that has cowed protesters, who have not held a significant rally for the past 11 days.

Onlookers and pedestrians often gave their support. In side streets near the university, police were chasing young activists, and when they caught one, passers-by chanted "let him go, let him go," until the policemen released him. Elsewhere, residents let fleeing demonstrators slip into their homes to elude police, witnesses said.

All witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. Iranian authorities have imposed restrictions that ban reporters from leaving their offices to cover demonstrations.

Many of the marchers were young men and women, some wearing green surgical masks, the color of Mousavi's movement, but older people joined them in some places. Vehicles caught in traffic honked their horns in support of the marchers, witnesses said. Police were seen with a pile of license plates, apparently pried off honking cars in order to investigate the drivers later, the witnesses said.

Soon after the confrontations began, mobile phone service was cut off in central Tehran, a step that was also taken during the height of the postelection protests to cut off communications. Mobile phone messaging has been off for the past three days, apparently to disrupt attempts at planning.

The calls for a new march have been circulating for days on social networking Web sites and pro-opposition Web sites. Opposition supporters planned the marches to coincide with the anniversary Thursday of a 1999 attack by Basij on a Tehran University dorm to stop protests in which one student was killed.

Demonstrators dispersed by nightfall. But after sunset, shouts of "death to the dictator" could be heard from rooftops around the city - a half-hour nightly ritual by Mousavi supporters that has continued even since the previous crackdown.

Mousavi and his pro-reform supporters say he won the election, which official results showed as a landslide victory for incumbent hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Days of massive demonstrations erupted, until supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the results valid and warned that unrest would not be tolerated.

In the crackdown that followed, at least 20 protesters and seven Basijis were killed, according to police.

Police have said 1,000 people were arrested in the crackdown and that most have since been released. But prosecutor-general Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi said Wednesday that 2,500 people were arrested and that 500 of them could face trial, Press TV reported. The remainder have been released, Najafabadi said.

Arrests have continued over the past week, with police rounding up dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers.

In the latest detentions, prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was taken away by security forces from his office Wednesday along with his daughter and three other members of his staff, the pro-opposition news Web site Norouz reported. A former deputy commerce minister in a previous pro-reform government, Feizollah Arab-Sorkhi, was also arrested at his Tehran home, the site reported.

A large number of top figures in Iran's reform movement, including a former vice president and former Cabinet members, have been held for weeks since the election.

Iranian authorities have depicted the postelection turmoil as instigated by enemy nations aiming to thwart Ahmadinejad's re-election, and officials say some of those detained confessed to fomenting the unrest. Opposition supporters say the confessions were forced under duress.

Ahead of the protests, Tehran's governor Morteza Tamaddon accused "foreign counterrevolutionary networks" of plotting new marches. "If some individuals plan to carry out any anti-security actions by listening to (protest) calls ... they will be smashed under the feet of our aware people," he said late Wednesday, according to the state news agency IRNA.

[curiously1]

The fact is, we as a free nation and as an advocate for freedom and democracy, we must begin to do the least that we can to help any and all freedom movements in the world. Why are we not at least descrambling cell phones and internet in Iran? How would that be considered as "meddling"? Why are our leaders so afraid of these mullah thugs? These thugs have, for years now, been wishing and chaniting death to us. They are burning U.S flag in Iran day and night. They have contributed to terrorist activities in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon and even Europe. They have the blood of American soldiers and civilians on their hands. We are fools if we believe that we can EVER have any normal relations with these thugs and it is inevitable that, at some point, this issue would have to be addressed and it seems that FORCE is the way to do it. Why delay it?

[speakinup22]

We should be helping these freedom fighters !

Instead Obama sits on his hands. "Present!"

More like "lights are on but no one is at home."




These younger Iranians are tired of the same old status quo. They WANT to be part of the world community. They WANT to listen to reason. They WANT to live by the world's opinion, unlike the Ayatollah. They are the very people that we need to support.

It doesn't HAVE to be with arms, like Ahmadinejad did in Iraq, it can be with encouragement. Still our government keeps quiet.

If this group doesn't hear from us, they will assume we are not their friends, and a hope of changing Iran, a potential nuclear state, is missed. If for some reason they DO succeed without our help, they WILL remember our lack of action.

What can we possibly gain by keeping our mouths shut ? The good will of Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah ? FAT CHANCE.

[lexern]

Obama should be IMPEACHED if he tries to engage the illegitimate regime in Iran.

[rafterman1]

I hope the protesters succeed, but I don't think the opposition is strong enough. While its unlikely that Ahmadinejad "won" by the two-thirds majority he claims, it was still a close election and Ahmadinejad has enough supporters of his own to see this through. It's not like the Shah situation, where he was universally despised.

[speakinup22]

Yeah - too bad the current administration won't at least give them verbal backing. I guess he's too used to "present" instead of speaking up for freedom world wide.

I guess this is what he meant by the "Audacity of Hope".

[ddno]

World should know what this day happened in the streets of Tehran is not only going to fight the suppressed nation of Iran! If the Iranian nation puts against this fierce teeth armed government without adjuvant, how soon the world will see the golden opportunity for escape from a terrorist regime have lost and the hope of democracy in Iran and the Middle East will go for years ?

http://snipurl.com/mi08i

[alien_view]

I wonder if our gutless wonder is going to show any support for the people of Iran and their efforts towards freedom.

[ddno]

robinspp- if you really believe that,why Iranian dictatorship try to hide the right news and why are all reporters still banned ? Good luck to the Iranian people,we'll have to fight to get the government we deserve.

[robinspp]

The majority of the poor in Iran support Ahmadinejad, only the minority, the middle class and the rich are with the opposition party. In an election the majority wins the minority looses. Now it is better for the opposition party to wait for the next term. Street protests and violent will not do any good for them.

[ddno]

Today show proved that all this complaint movement has not got over yet and it was an unfortunate news for our dwarf dictator; He also found out nothing has completed and should stay all four years with fear and nightmares of future protests and demonstrations. He and his patron, brutal khameneie who has believed any ******** to say to salvage them from debacle is going to spend the Unsightly next days and will not seem to them both way to back

[eyesC]

The devils eyes are in their current leader had he been fair in his election some would have thought him a fool for that. Now he has removed all DOUBT, all know him for who and what he is.