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New protests, clashes in Iran

23 December 2009 20:30 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“ APA. Reports of more demonstrations filtered out of Iran on Wednesday, including some that mentioned attacks on people mourning the death of a prominent cleric who was critical of the government, CNN reported.
The reports come two days after a witness said that tens of thousands of people chanted anti-government slogans before the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, a key figure in the 1979 Iranian revolution who went on to become one of the government’s most vocal critics.
On Wednesday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on pro-government demonstrations in the neighboring cities of Isfahan and Najafabad, roughly 200 miles south of Tehran. That account did not mention clashes, but another did.
A news site maintained by reformists in the Iranian parliament said that people in plain clothes used tear gas and pepper spray to attack people who had gathered in a mosque in Isfahan to mourn Montazeri’s death; it said 50 people were arrested.
Like other accounts, the report on the reformists’ news site could not independently be verified.
Montazeri died Sunday at age 87.
A key figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, Montazeri became the most prominent cleric to publicly criticize the presidential elections last June that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency.