Iranian Police and Protesters Clash at Montazeri Memorial

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ISFAHAN, Iran – On December 23 Iranian security forces clashed with opposition supporters demonstrating in the central city of Isfahan. The clashes occurred reportedly as large crowds gathered to mourn the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Opposition websites claim that pro-reform protesters had been injured by the police in the clashes.

The violence erupted when thousands of Iranians attempted to gather for a memorial to Montazeri at a mosque. Security forces and hard-line militia men beat opposition protesters and fired tear gas into crowds. Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Iran, said that witnesses allege that they had not heard shots fired. Opposition websites report that over fifty opposition supporters had been arrested.

The government’s crackdown marked the first time that clerics who supported the opposition had been targeted. Basij militiamen surround the house and office of two prominent religious figures. They shouted slogans and broke windows, opposition websites reported.

The death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri gave new push to the opposition protests. Montazeri was a sharp critic Iranian leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He died December 20th at the age of 87 and a funeral held the following day in Qom  that drew tens of thousands of Iranians onto the streets.

Mehrad Khonsari, an Iranian affiars analyst in London and a former diplomat in Iran explains that “the government cannot allow for great celebrations of (Montazeri’s) life to be carried out given the fact that that would be counter the kind of policies they been making in the course of the last 20 years.” He says that in an increase in government pressure is inevitable as the opposition has been incrementally increasing their pressure.

The United States government expressed concern with how Iran’s security forces acted in the clash. State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters, “Iran is increasingly showing itself to be a police state.” Crowley explained that the Iranian government’s security forces are attempting to eliminate the fact that “clearly the aspirations of the Iranian people (are) for a different relationship with their government.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – Iran Behaves Increasingly Like a ‘Police State’: US” – 23 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Clashes Reported at Iran Protests – 23 December 2009

Associated Press – Police, Protesters Clash in Southern Iran – 23 December 2009

BBC – Clashes at Montazeri Ceremony – 23 December 2009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive