TEHRAN: Iran threatened tougher action against protesters Tuesday after more than 200 were arrested during marches by tens of thousands at universities across the country, the biggest anti-government rallies in months.
The warning suggested that Monday’s unrest raised authorities’ concern that the protest movement could pick up new steam. The protests Monday turned into fierce clashes between youths throwing stones and riot police and militiamen wielding batons and tear gas.
On Tuesday, riot police were out in heavy numbers at intersections on major thoroughfares around the city.
At Tehran University, a group of hard-line Basij militiamen attacked a small demonstration of students on Tuesday. The militiamen pelted them with stones and fired tear gas to disperse them and dragged at least one student away, said witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution.
Plainclothes men on motorcycles — likely Basijis — also harassed the opposition’s leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, at his Tehran office on Tuesday. Up to 30 men on motorcycles, some in masks, blocked Mousavi as he tried to drive out of his office garage and chanted slogans against him, two opposition websites said, citing witnesses.
Tehran’s police chief, Gen. Azizullah Rajabzadeh, announced that 204 protesters, including 39 women, were arrested in the capital during Monday’s demonstrations.
They were detained for “violating public order,” including setting fire to vehicles and chanting slogans, he said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
Those arrested will be handed over to the judiciary for prosecution, he said.
Iran’s top prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, warned on Tuesday that the judiciary will be harsher than in the past.
“So far, we have shown restraint. From today no leniency will be applied,” Ejehi said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
