Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Iranian Police Use Force to Break Up Protest | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55279729
Caption:

A screen grab taken on from a video posted on YouTube, allegedly shows Iranian men trying to help a wounded woman named “Neda” after getting shot in the chest during a protest in Tehran. (AFP)


A screen grab taken on from a video posted on YouTube, allegedly shows Iranian men trying to help a wounded woman named "Neda" after getting shot in the chest during a protest in Tehran. (AFP)

A screen grab taken on from a video posted on YouTube, allegedly shows Iranian men trying to help a wounded woman named “Neda” after getting shot in the chest during a protest in Tehran. (AFP)

TEHRAN, Iran, (AP) – Riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran Monday, carrying out a threat by the country’s most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election.

Britain, accused by Iran of fomenting post-election unrest, said it was evacuating the families of diplomats and other officials based in Iran.

Witnesses said helicopters hovered overhead as about 200 protesters gathered at Haft-e-Tir Square. But hundreds of anti-riot police quickly put an end to the demonstration and prevented any gathering, even small groups, at the scene.

At the subway station at Haft-e-Tir, the witnesses said police did not allow anyone to stand still, asking them to keep on walking and separating people who were walked together. The witnesses asked not to be identified for fear of government reprisals.

Just before the clashes, an Iranian woman who lives in Tehran said there was a heavy police and security presence in another square in central Tehran. She asked not to be identified because she was worried about government reprisals.

“There is a massive, massive, massive police presence,” she told the Associated Press in Cairo by telephone. “Their presence was really intimidating.”

Iran says at least 17 protesters have been killed in a week of unrest so far after the electoral council declared hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winner of the June 12 election. His main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, charged the election was a fraud and insists he is the true winner. His followers have been staging near-daily rallies, at least one of them drawing a massive crowds of hundreds of thousands.

Severe restrictions on reporters have made it almost impossible to independently verify any reports on demonstrations, clashes and casualties. Iran has ordered reporters for foreign news agencies to stay in their offices, barring them from any reporting on the streets.

The country’s highest electoral authority, the Guardian Council, acknowledged on Monday that there were voting irregularities in 50 electoral districts, the most serious official admission so far of problems in the election. But the council insisted the problems do not affect the outcome of the vote.

Earlier Monday, the elite Revolutionary Guard issued its sternest warning so far in the post-election crisis. It warned protesters to “be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confrontation with the Guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces” if they continue their near-daily rallies.

The Basij, a plainclothes militia under the command of the Revolutionary Guard, have been used to quell streets protests that erupted after the election result was announced.

The Guard statement ordered demonstrators to “end the sabotage and rioting activities” and said their resistance is a “conspiracy” against Iran. On Sunday, acting joint chief of the armed forces Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid issued a thinly veiled warning to Mousavi, saying “we are determined to confront plots by enemies aimed at creating a rift in the nation.

Mousavi vowed Sunday night to keep up the protests, in defiance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran. In a sermon to tens of thousands on Friday, Khamenei said demonstrators must stop their street protests or face the consequences and he firmly backed Ahmadinejad’s victory.

“The country belongs to you,” Mousavi’s latest statement said. “Protesting lies and fraud is your right.”

Mousavi’s Web site called Monday for supporters to turn on their car lights in the late afternoon as a sign of protest.

Mousavi’s latest statements posted on his Web site also warned supporters of danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters “at all times.” But he said he would “never allow anybody’s life to be endangered because of my actions” and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board.

The former prime minister, a longtime loyalist of the Islamic government, also called the Basij and military “our brothers” and “protectors of our revolution and regime.” He may be trying to constrain his followers’ demands before they pose a mortal threat to Iran’s system of limited democracy constrained by Shiite clerics, who have ultimate authority.

Mousavi ally and former president Mohammad Khatami said in a statement that “protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that.”

Iran state media reported at least 10 people were killed in the fiercest clashes yet on Saturday and 100 were injured.

A graphic video that appears to show a young woman dying within minutes after she was shot during Saturday’s demonstrations has become the iconic image seen by millions around the world on video-sharing sites such as YouTube.

Police said Monday that 457 people were arrested on Saturday alone, but did not say how many have been arrested throughout the week of turmoil.

The country’s highest electoral authority agreed last week to investigate some opposition complaints of problems in the voting. The Guardian Council said Monday it found irregularities in 50 voting districts, but that this has no effect on election outcome. Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei was quoted on the state TV Web site as saying that its probe showed more votes were cast in these constituencies than there were registered voters.

But this “has no effect on the result of the elections,” he said.

The British international affairs institute Chatham House released an analysis of Iran’s official election results Sunday that revealed anomalies casting doubt on Ahmadinejad’s victory.

Compared with the 2005 election, the official results in a third of the provinces would require that Ahmadinejad received support from all former centrist voters, all new voters and almost half of all former reformist voters — an unlikely scenario, the institute said.

The study also found that turnout in two provinces was more than 100 percent.

Mousavi has demanded that the election result be annulled and a new vote held.

Khatami said “taking complaints to bodies that are required to protect people’s rights, but are themselves subject to criticism, is not a solution” — effectively accusing the Council of collusion in vote fraud.

The government has intensified a crackdown on independent media — expelling a BBC correspondent, suspending the Dubai-based network Al-Arabiya and detaining at least two local journalists for U.S. magazines.

English-language state television said an exile group known as the People’s Mujahedeen had a hand in the street violence and broadcast what it said were confessions of British-controlled agents.

The exile group, also called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, is the military wing of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran. The council says it is dedicated to a democratic, secular government in Iran, but the military wing has been blacklisted by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

The Foreign Ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments, with ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accusing them of “a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World.”

“Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable,” he said at a news conference shown on state TV, taking particular aim at French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“How can a Western president, like the French president, ask for nullification of Iranian election results?” Qashqavi said. “I regret such comments.”

A supporter of Iranian Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi holds a placard during a protest against the election results in Iran near the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. (AFP)

A supporter of Iranian Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi holds a placard during a protest against the election results in Iran near the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. (AFP)

A protester (not pictured) makes a V-victory sign with his fingers painted in red and green, the colors of the Iranian flag, during a rally in Paris to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election. (AFP)

A protester (not pictured) makes a V-victory sign with his fingers painted in red and green, the colors of the Iranian flag, during a rally in Paris to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. (AFP)