Fwd: [ufpj-iran] FT,NYT: Violations of Ashura taboo on violence delegitimize Iranian régime
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Michael Lynn
Dec 28, 2009, 10:27:22 AM12/28/09
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From: Mark Jensen <jens...@plu.edu>
Date: Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 2:45 AM
Subject: [ufpj-iran] FT,NYT: Violations of Ashura taboo on violence delegitimize Iranian régime
To: UFPJ-IRAN listerv <ufpj...@lists.mayfirst.org>
NEWS: Violations of Ashura taboo on violence delegitimize Iranian régime (NYT)
[The *Financial Times* put at eight the number of protesters killed on the Shia holiday of Ashura in demonstrations in Tehran and Tabriz on Sunday.[1] -- The *New York Times* put the number at "at least 10," 5 in Tehran, 4 in Tabriz, and 1 in Shiraz, and named ten Iranian cities that saw protests and clashes.[2] -- Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi said that "The decision by the authorities to use deadly force on the Ashura holiday infuriated many Iranians, and some said the violence appeared to galvanize more traditional religious people who have not been part of the protests so far. Historically, Iranian rulers have honored Ashura’s prohibition of violence, even during wartime. . . . few protesters expected the scale of the bloodshed that broke out on Sunday. The memory of Imam Hussein is so potent among Shiites that killing for any reason is strictly forbidden on Ashura, and Iranian leaders have always tried to avoid violence or even state executions during a two-month period surrounding the holiday." -- "There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering, or refusing to fight." -- Worth and Fathi said that "Ali Moussavi [opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi's 43-year-old nephew] appears to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family." -- The *New York Times* news blog The Lede (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/updates-on-protests-and-clashes-in-iran/) is providing regular updates on developments. --Mark]
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9265/
1.
Iran
BIGGEST PROTESTS IN MONTHS TAKE PLACE IN IRAN
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr
Financial Times (London)
December 27, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffeb88d2-f2db-11de-a888-00144feab49a.html
TEHRAN -- Iran’s opposition movement on Sunday staged its biggest rallies in more than six months, using the Shia holiday of Ashura to pull hundred of thousands of supporters into the streets to protest against the regime.
Opposition websites said at least eight people were killed in clashes with security forces during protests in Tehran and the northwestern city of Tabriz. Among those killed, according to the websites, was the nephew of Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the top reformist candidate in June’s disputed elections and de facto leader of the opposition.
A senior police official confirmed four deaths but blamed “rioters” for the killings. More than 300 people had been arrested, he said. State television late on Sunday confirmed that four people had died in the protests and also confirmed Mr. Moussavi’s nephew had been killed by “unknown assailants.” But it denied reports that security forces had killed any protesters, according to Reuters.
The marches on Sunday marked the biggest show of strength by the opposition since June 20, when at least 10 people were killed by the security forces.
Reformists seized on the turnout as a sign of a potential turning point in their struggle against the regime.
The “fight against the regime has become part of people’s daily life and Sunday’s rally showed the peaceful protests are getting out of control,” said one reformist. “Even the opposition leaders might not be able to curb these rallies any more,” he added.
The opposition has gained new momentum since the December 20 death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the most senior dissident cleric. His death from natural causes fuelled another round of protests and led to demonstrations in Tehran, the holy city of Qom, Isfahan, and Najafabad, his birthplace which is close to Isfahan.
Some demonstrators in Tehran carried pictures of Montazeri. “Montazeri, the victim, your path will be continued,” they chanted, according to eyewitnesses.
As they have during other rallies since the June 12 presidential election, protesters made victory signs and wore green wristbands and scarves, the symbolic color of the opposition. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president, claimed he had won victory in a “landslide” in the June election. Mr. Moussavi, his main reformist opponent, has rejected the results as fraudulent.
Eyewitnesses said Sunday’s rally appeared bigger and more tense than some of the mass rallies seen in June. The demonstrators also appeared to be less afraid of the security forces, observers said.
As police used teargas, batons, and fired shots into the air to try to disperse the crowd, some demonstrators urged those around them to stand firm.
“Don’t be scared. We are safe as long as we are a big crowd,” one woman, in a black top-to-toe Islamic covering, shouted to those around her, according to an eyewitness. The demonstrators threw stones at armed security forces, allegedly set fire to motorbikes and cars, and broke windows.
Some of the reformists expressed concern about a more extreme tone seemingly emerging in the protests. “It is really worrying that the slogans are getting more radical,” said Hamid-Reza Jalaeipour, a reformist sociologist.
While protesters chanted hardly any slogans against the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad, they focused their ire on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who has sided with the fundamentalist president and has the last say in state affairs. “Death to the dictator," “Death to Khamenei,” and “God is Great” were among the slogans eyewitnesses reported hearing chanted.
Demonstrators marched a 10km stretch from Imam Hossein Square in eastern Tehran towards Azadi Square at the western end, retracing the main route taken by protesters during the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. The streets leading to the main route were also packed.
Sunday’s Ashura holiday marks the day that Hossein, the grandson of prophet Mohammed, was killed in the 7th century. The festival, which was also used by protesters in the lead-up to the Islamic Revolution, is the biggest in Shia-dominated Iran. It therefore allowed the opposition to go out en masse without any need to be organized by political leaders or denied a permit by the authorities.
The White House on Sunday “strongly condemned” “the violent and unjust suppression of civilians in Iran seeking to exercise their universal rights.” France also condemned “the arbitrary arrests and violence committed against protesters.”
2.
World
Middle East
POLICE ARE SAID TO HAVE KILLED 10 IN IRAN PROTESTS
By Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi
New York Times
December 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html
BEIRUT -- Police officers in Iran opened fire into crowds of protesters on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, witnesses and opposition Web sites said, in a day of chaotic street battles that threatened to deepen the country’s civil unrest.
The protests, during the holiday commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest and among the largest since the uprisings that followed the disputed presidential election last June, witnesses said. Hundreds of people were reported wounded in cities across the country, and the Tehran police said they had made 300 arrests.
One of the dead was Ali Moussavi, a 43-year-old nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi.
The decision by the authorities to use deadly force on the Ashura holiday infuriated many Iranians, and some said the violence appeared to galvanize more traditional religious people who have not been part of the protests so far. Historically, Iranian rulers have honored Ashura’s prohibition of violence, even during wartime.
In Tehran, thick crowds marched down a central avenue in midmorning, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted “death to Khamenei,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has expressed growing intolerance for political dissent in the country.
They refused to retreat even as the police fired tear gas, charged them with batons and fired warning shots. The police then opened fire directly into the crowd, opposition Web sites said, citing witnesses. At least five people were killed in Tehran, four in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and one in Shiraz in the south, the Web sites reported. Photographs of several victims were circulated widely.
Unlike the other protesters reported killed on Sunday, Ali Moussavi appears to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family.
Mr. Moussavi was first run over by a sport utility vehicle outside his home, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote on his Web site. Five men then emerged from the car, and one of them shot Mr. Moussavi. Government officials took the body late Sunday and warned the family not to hold a funeral, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote.
In some parts of Tehran, protesters pushed the police back, hurling rocks and capturing several police cars and motorcycles, which they set on fire. Videos posted to the Internet showed scenes of mayhem, with trash bins burning and groups of protesters attacking Basij militia volunteers amid a din of screams.
One video showed a group of protesters setting an entire police station aflame in Tehran. Another showed people carrying off the body of a dead protester, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.”
By late afternoon, coils of black smoke rose over central Tehran from dozens of street fires, and smaller groups of protesters continued to skirmish with police and Basij militia members. In the evening, loudspeakers in Imam Hussein Square, where most of the clashes took place, announced that gatherings of more than three people were banned, witnesses said.
There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering, or refusing to fight. Several videos posted on the Internet show officers holding up their helmets and walking away from the melee, as protesters pat them on the back in appreciation. In one photograph, a police officer can be seen holding his arms up and wearing a bright green headband, the signature color of the opposition movement.
The Tehran police denied firing on protesters and in an official statement late Sunday said five people had been killed “in suspicious ways.”
Ahmadreza Radan, deputy commander of state security forces in Tehran, said dozens of police officers had been injured and “some were killed,” the semiofficial news agency ISNA reported.
Protests and clashes also broke out in the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Arak, Tabriz, Najafabad, Babol, Ardebil, and Orumieh, opposition Web sites said.
Foreign journalists have been banned from covering the protests, and the reports could not be independently verified.
If the 10 deaths are confirmed, it would be the highest toll since the summer, when huge crowds took to the streets to protest what they said was rampant fraud in the presidential election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The White House condemned what it called the “unjust suppression” of civilians by the Iranian government on Sunday.
“Hope and history are on the side of those who peacefully seek their universal rights, and so is the United States,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
The turmoil revealed an opposition movement that is becoming bolder and more direct in its challenge to Iran’s governing authorities. Protesters deliberately blended their political message with the day’s religious one on Sunday, alternating antigovernment slogans with ancient cries of mourning for Imam Hussein.
“This is the month of blood, Yazid will fall,” the protesters shouted, equating Ayatollah Khamenei with Yazid, the ruler who ordered Imam Hussein’s killing.
The protests may have received a boost from the death last week of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a patriarch of Iran’s Islamic Revolution who became a fierce critic of the country’s leaders, especially in recent months. His memorials have brought out not only the young activists and students who have dominated the protests in recent months, but also older and more conservative people, who revered him for reasons of faith as well as politics.
Sunday was the seventh day since his death, an important marker in Shiite mourning rituals. Late Sunday, the authorities declared martial law in the city of Najafabad, Ayatollah Montazeri’s hometown, the Jaras Web site reported.
The government crackdowns on mourning ceremonies in the past week provoked many people in the more traditional neighborhoods of south Tehran as earlier clashes did not, some residents said.
“People in my neighborhood have been going to the Ashura rituals every night with green fabric for the first time,” said Hamid, 33, a laborer who lives in the southern Tehran neighborhood of Shahreh-Ray and declined to give his last name. “They have been politicized recently, because of the suppression this month.”
Yet few protesters expected the scale of the bloodshed that broke out on Sunday. The memory of Imam Hussein is so potent among Shiites that killing for any reason is strictly forbidden on Ashura, and Iranian leaders have always tried to avoid violence or even state executions during a two-month period surrounding the holiday.
“Ashura is a very symbolic day in our culture, and it revives the notion that the innocents were killed by a villain,” said Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of the Iranian Parliament who is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “Killing people on Ashura shows how far Khamenei is willing to go to suppress the protests.”
In another sign of the breadth of the crackdown, security forces on Sunday raided the offices of a clerical association in the holy city of Qom that has supported the opposition since the June election, the Jaras Web site reported. Guards surrounded the house, and members of the association and their families -- who had gathered inside the association’s headquarters for an Ashura mourning ceremony -- were not allowed to leave, the site reported.
Mr. Radan, the police deputy commander, said that only one of the protesters killed in Tehran had been shot. Two were run over by cars and one was thrown from a bridge, he said.
But a doctor working at Najmieh Hospital in Tehran said Sunday night that the hospital had performed 17 operations on people with gunshot wounds. They were treating 60 people with serious head injuries, including three who were in critical condition, said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
--Robert F. Worth reported from Beirut, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.
_______________________________________________
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From: Mark Jensen <jens...@plu.edu>
Date: Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 2:45 AM
Subject: [ufpj-iran] FT,NYT: Violations of Ashura taboo on violence delegitimize Iranian régime
To: UFPJ-IRAN listerv <ufpj...@lists.mayfirst.org>
NEWS: Violations of Ashura taboo on violence delegitimize Iranian régime (NYT)
[The *Financial Times* put at eight the number of protesters killed on the Shia holiday of Ashura in demonstrations in Tehran and Tabriz on Sunday.[1] -- The *New York Times* put the number at "at least 10," 5 in Tehran, 4 in Tabriz, and 1 in Shiraz, and named ten Iranian cities that saw protests and clashes.[2] -- Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi said that "The decision by the authorities to use deadly force on the Ashura holiday infuriated many Iranians, and some said the violence appeared to galvanize more traditional religious people who have not been part of the protests so far. Historically, Iranian rulers have honored Ashura’s prohibition of violence, even during wartime. . . . few protesters expected the scale of the bloodshed that broke out on Sunday. The memory of Imam Hussein is so potent among Shiites that killing for any reason is strictly forbidden on Ashura, and Iranian leaders have always tried to avoid violence or even state executions during a two-month period surrounding the holiday." -- "There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering, or refusing to fight." -- Worth and Fathi said that "Ali Moussavi [opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi's 43-year-old nephew] appears to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family." -- The *New York Times* news blog The Lede (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/updates-on-protests-and-clashes-in-iran/) is providing regular updates on developments. --Mark]
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9265/
1.
Iran
BIGGEST PROTESTS IN MONTHS TAKE PLACE IN IRAN
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr
Financial Times (London)
December 27, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffeb88d2-f2db-11de-a888-00144feab49a.html
TEHRAN -- Iran’s opposition movement on Sunday staged its biggest rallies in more than six months, using the Shia holiday of Ashura to pull hundred of thousands of supporters into the streets to protest against the regime.
Opposition websites said at least eight people were killed in clashes with security forces during protests in Tehran and the northwestern city of Tabriz. Among those killed, according to the websites, was the nephew of Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the top reformist candidate in June’s disputed elections and de facto leader of the opposition.
A senior police official confirmed four deaths but blamed “rioters” for the killings. More than 300 people had been arrested, he said. State television late on Sunday confirmed that four people had died in the protests and also confirmed Mr. Moussavi’s nephew had been killed by “unknown assailants.” But it denied reports that security forces had killed any protesters, according to Reuters.
The marches on Sunday marked the biggest show of strength by the opposition since June 20, when at least 10 people were killed by the security forces.
Reformists seized on the turnout as a sign of a potential turning point in their struggle against the regime.
The “fight against the regime has become part of people’s daily life and Sunday’s rally showed the peaceful protests are getting out of control,” said one reformist. “Even the opposition leaders might not be able to curb these rallies any more,” he added.
The opposition has gained new momentum since the December 20 death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the most senior dissident cleric. His death from natural causes fuelled another round of protests and led to demonstrations in Tehran, the holy city of Qom, Isfahan, and Najafabad, his birthplace which is close to Isfahan.
Some demonstrators in Tehran carried pictures of Montazeri. “Montazeri, the victim, your path will be continued,” they chanted, according to eyewitnesses.
As they have during other rallies since the June 12 presidential election, protesters made victory signs and wore green wristbands and scarves, the symbolic color of the opposition. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president, claimed he had won victory in a “landslide” in the June election. Mr. Moussavi, his main reformist opponent, has rejected the results as fraudulent.
Eyewitnesses said Sunday’s rally appeared bigger and more tense than some of the mass rallies seen in June. The demonstrators also appeared to be less afraid of the security forces, observers said.
As police used teargas, batons, and fired shots into the air to try to disperse the crowd, some demonstrators urged those around them to stand firm.
“Don’t be scared. We are safe as long as we are a big crowd,” one woman, in a black top-to-toe Islamic covering, shouted to those around her, according to an eyewitness. The demonstrators threw stones at armed security forces, allegedly set fire to motorbikes and cars, and broke windows.
Some of the reformists expressed concern about a more extreme tone seemingly emerging in the protests. “It is really worrying that the slogans are getting more radical,” said Hamid-Reza Jalaeipour, a reformist sociologist.
While protesters chanted hardly any slogans against the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad, they focused their ire on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who has sided with the fundamentalist president and has the last say in state affairs. “Death to the dictator," “Death to Khamenei,” and “God is Great” were among the slogans eyewitnesses reported hearing chanted.
Demonstrators marched a 10km stretch from Imam Hossein Square in eastern Tehran towards Azadi Square at the western end, retracing the main route taken by protesters during the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. The streets leading to the main route were also packed.
Sunday’s Ashura holiday marks the day that Hossein, the grandson of prophet Mohammed, was killed in the 7th century. The festival, which was also used by protesters in the lead-up to the Islamic Revolution, is the biggest in Shia-dominated Iran. It therefore allowed the opposition to go out en masse without any need to be organized by political leaders or denied a permit by the authorities.
The White House on Sunday “strongly condemned” “the violent and unjust suppression of civilians in Iran seeking to exercise their universal rights.” France also condemned “the arbitrary arrests and violence committed against protesters.”
2.
World
Middle East
POLICE ARE SAID TO HAVE KILLED 10 IN IRAN PROTESTS
By Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi
New York Times
December 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html
BEIRUT -- Police officers in Iran opened fire into crowds of protesters on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, witnesses and opposition Web sites said, in a day of chaotic street battles that threatened to deepen the country’s civil unrest.
The protests, during the holiday commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest and among the largest since the uprisings that followed the disputed presidential election last June, witnesses said. Hundreds of people were reported wounded in cities across the country, and the Tehran police said they had made 300 arrests.
One of the dead was Ali Moussavi, a 43-year-old nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi.
The decision by the authorities to use deadly force on the Ashura holiday infuriated many Iranians, and some said the violence appeared to galvanize more traditional religious people who have not been part of the protests so far. Historically, Iranian rulers have honored Ashura’s prohibition of violence, even during wartime.
In Tehran, thick crowds marched down a central avenue in midmorning, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted “death to Khamenei,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has expressed growing intolerance for political dissent in the country.
They refused to retreat even as the police fired tear gas, charged them with batons and fired warning shots. The police then opened fire directly into the crowd, opposition Web sites said, citing witnesses. At least five people were killed in Tehran, four in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and one in Shiraz in the south, the Web sites reported. Photographs of several victims were circulated widely.
Unlike the other protesters reported killed on Sunday, Ali Moussavi appears to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family.
Mr. Moussavi was first run over by a sport utility vehicle outside his home, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote on his Web site. Five men then emerged from the car, and one of them shot Mr. Moussavi. Government officials took the body late Sunday and warned the family not to hold a funeral, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote.
In some parts of Tehran, protesters pushed the police back, hurling rocks and capturing several police cars and motorcycles, which they set on fire. Videos posted to the Internet showed scenes of mayhem, with trash bins burning and groups of protesters attacking Basij militia volunteers amid a din of screams.
One video showed a group of protesters setting an entire police station aflame in Tehran. Another showed people carrying off the body of a dead protester, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.”
By late afternoon, coils of black smoke rose over central Tehran from dozens of street fires, and smaller groups of protesters continued to skirmish with police and Basij militia members. In the evening, loudspeakers in Imam Hussein Square, where most of the clashes took place, announced that gatherings of more than three people were banned, witnesses said.
There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering, or refusing to fight. Several videos posted on the Internet show officers holding up their helmets and walking away from the melee, as protesters pat them on the back in appreciation. In one photograph, a police officer can be seen holding his arms up and wearing a bright green headband, the signature color of the opposition movement.
The Tehran police denied firing on protesters and in an official statement late Sunday said five people had been killed “in suspicious ways.”
Ahmadreza Radan, deputy commander of state security forces in Tehran, said dozens of police officers had been injured and “some were killed,” the semiofficial news agency ISNA reported.
Protests and clashes also broke out in the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Arak, Tabriz, Najafabad, Babol, Ardebil, and Orumieh, opposition Web sites said.
Foreign journalists have been banned from covering the protests, and the reports could not be independently verified.
If the 10 deaths are confirmed, it would be the highest toll since the summer, when huge crowds took to the streets to protest what they said was rampant fraud in the presidential election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The White House condemned what it called the “unjust suppression” of civilians by the Iranian government on Sunday.
“Hope and history are on the side of those who peacefully seek their universal rights, and so is the United States,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
The turmoil revealed an opposition movement that is becoming bolder and more direct in its challenge to Iran’s governing authorities. Protesters deliberately blended their political message with the day’s religious one on Sunday, alternating antigovernment slogans with ancient cries of mourning for Imam Hussein.
“This is the month of blood, Yazid will fall,” the protesters shouted, equating Ayatollah Khamenei with Yazid, the ruler who ordered Imam Hussein’s killing.
The protests may have received a boost from the death last week of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a patriarch of Iran’s Islamic Revolution who became a fierce critic of the country’s leaders, especially in recent months. His memorials have brought out not only the young activists and students who have dominated the protests in recent months, but also older and more conservative people, who revered him for reasons of faith as well as politics.
Sunday was the seventh day since his death, an important marker in Shiite mourning rituals. Late Sunday, the authorities declared martial law in the city of Najafabad, Ayatollah Montazeri’s hometown, the Jaras Web site reported.
The government crackdowns on mourning ceremonies in the past week provoked many people in the more traditional neighborhoods of south Tehran as earlier clashes did not, some residents said.
“People in my neighborhood have been going to the Ashura rituals every night with green fabric for the first time,” said Hamid, 33, a laborer who lives in the southern Tehran neighborhood of Shahreh-Ray and declined to give his last name. “They have been politicized recently, because of the suppression this month.”
Yet few protesters expected the scale of the bloodshed that broke out on Sunday. The memory of Imam Hussein is so potent among Shiites that killing for any reason is strictly forbidden on Ashura, and Iranian leaders have always tried to avoid violence or even state executions during a two-month period surrounding the holiday.
“Ashura is a very symbolic day in our culture, and it revives the notion that the innocents were killed by a villain,” said Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of the Iranian Parliament who is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “Killing people on Ashura shows how far Khamenei is willing to go to suppress the protests.”
In another sign of the breadth of the crackdown, security forces on Sunday raided the offices of a clerical association in the holy city of Qom that has supported the opposition since the June election, the Jaras Web site reported. Guards surrounded the house, and members of the association and their families -- who had gathered inside the association’s headquarters for an Ashura mourning ceremony -- were not allowed to leave, the site reported.
Mr. Radan, the police deputy commander, said that only one of the protesters killed in Tehran had been shot. Two were run over by cars and one was thrown from a bridge, he said.
But a doctor working at Najmieh Hospital in Tehran said Sunday night that the hospital had performed 17 operations on people with gunshot wounds. They were treating 60 people with serious head injuries, including three who were in critical condition, said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
--Robert F. Worth reported from Beirut, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.
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