The Hindu : Front Page : Tehran on knife-edge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Tehran on knife-edge

Atul Aneja

Reports of deaths after blast at shrine

Opposition supporters clash with police
Tehran varsity campus cordoned off

DUBAI: Iran’s capital Tehran stood on a knife-edge on Saturday as opposition supporters defying warnings by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to stay indoors clashed with police amid reports by the state media of a bomb explosion at the revered Imam Khomeini shrine, a site of extraordinary political symbolism.

Iran’s state television reported that two persons were killed and eight injured by the blast at the shrine, where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution’s founder has been laid to rest. The explosion, which can be interpreted as posing a symbolic challenge to the 1979 revolution’s fundamentals, can impact on the public’s perception of the opposition-led agitation against the results of the recent disputed presidential elections, analysts say. Opposition leader Mir Hosain Mousavi’s call for an annulment of the vote which elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President for a second term has been followed by a series of rallies in which hundreds of thousands of Iranians have participated.

Witnesses reported heavy clashes on Saturday between protesters and riot police, which used tear gas and water cannons to disperse around three thousand people at Revolution Square.

Agency reports said police and plainclothes militia beat up 50-60 protesters, who were taken to the Imam Khomeini hospital in central Tehran. Helicopters hovered overhead to take pictures of the scene while ambulance sirens could be heard in the streets.

Police cordoned off Tehran University campus, which had witnessed considerable violence on Sunday. Apparently, students at the university’s fine arts department, which had been earlier attacked, announced an indefinite sit-in on Saturday.

Aware that the stakes had risen dramatically after the Supreme Leader’s decisive intervention on Friday against the opposition, Tehran’s acting police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan warned: “I should emphasise that all protests held in the past week were illegal and beginning today any gathering critical of the election would be illegal.”

Iran’s Security Council also warned Mr. Mousavi against “the consequences” of backing street rallies. Observers point out that the agitation in Tehran has now reached the next level. Instead of being a dispute over an election result, it has transformed itself into a conflict between a widely supported opposition movement, and the Islamic leadership that includes its highest decision maker, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Since Friday, the hiatus between the opposition and the authorities has increased dramatically. Mr. Mousavi chose not to attend Ayatollah Khamenei’s Friday sermon. Nor did he attend a scheduled meeting on Saturday with the supervisory Guardian Council, which has announced that it is prepared to carry out a recount of only 10 per cent of the vote — a far cry from the re-poll that Mr. Mousavi has demanded.

Significantly, the former President, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, has also reportedly called for a meeting of the 89-member Assembly of Experts, which he heads to convene in Qom, Iran’s religious capital. The Assembly of Experts monitors the activities of the Supreme Leader, and, theoretically can also remove him.

In Tehran, rivals hold rallies

Iran’s council to conduct partial vote recount

Obama concerned over Iran

Iran on the boil — Editorial

Iran protesters speak out

Post-poll polarisation affects power centres

Khamenei orders probe into poll fraud charges

Mousavi addresses huge rally in Tehran

Time to move forward — Editorial

Ahmadinejad rejects charge of electoral fraud

Landslide for Ahmadinejad

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail