TEHRAN: Iranian security forces fired warning shots in Tehran on Monday and beat opposition protesters seeking to renew their challenge to the government six months after a disputed election.
The security forces fired shots into the air as they clashed with supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi at a state rally marking the killing of three students under the former Shah, the reformist website Mowjcamp said.
“Security forces are beating demonstrators, men and women. Some of them are injured and bleeding,” said one witness in Tehran’s central Haft-e-Tir Square.
The June 12 presidential election, which secured President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, sparked Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 revolution. Authorities deny allegations of vote-rigging.
Journalists working for foreign media were told by officials not to leave their offices to cover stories from Monday until Wednesday, but witnesses told Reuters hundreds of riot police battled protesters in various Tehran squares to disperse them.
Authorities shut down the mobile phone network in central Tehran to stop opposition protesters from contacting each other, the reformist website Rah-e-Sabz said.
The opposition, which mainly relies on websites or mobile phone text messages to reach supporters, held similar protests sparking clashes with police in September and November.
“I saw at least 10 people being arrested and taken to minibuses,” said one witness, while another said police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Vali-ye-Asr Square.
Among those detained was student leader Majid Tavakoli from the prominent Amir Kabir University, the official IRNA news agency said, adding that he was “disguised as a woman” and was held for leading “riots” in the university.
“Security forces shot into the air to disperse demonstrators in the Enqelab Square,” the Mowjcamp website said, adding at least two women were among those arrested.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and their Basij militia allies had warned the opposition not to use the rally to revive protests against the establishment that took place after the June vote.
Riot police surrounded Tehran University, where the main rally was held, to try to prevent opposition protests.
Internet connections were slow or completely down on Monday as had been the case in the past few days. University students, who form a core of the opposition movement in Iran, urged people to join them. Reformist websites said anti-government protests were held inside at least four universities.
