Iran Tense After Day of Violent Clashes

TEHRAN — Hours after police and militia forces used guns, truncheons, tear gas and water cannons to beat back thousands of demonstrators, a tense quiet set over this city Sunday as amateur video began to emerge of the violent clashes that filled the streets the
It was unclear how the confrontation would play out now that the government has abandoned its restraint and large numbers of protestors have demonstrated their willingness to risk injury and even death as they continue to dispute the results of Iran’s presidential election nine days ago.

It was hard to verify claims, but witnesses and human rights groups reported at least several deaths. Iranian state radio reported that there were 19 deaths on Saturday.

There was no sign on the streets Sunday morning of the heavy security forces from the night before, but there were reports that protestors planned to demonstrate again later in the day, beginning at about 5 p.m., giving both sides time to regroup, or reconsider.

In Washington on Saturday, President Obama called the government’s reaction “violent and unjust,” and, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., warned again that the world was watching what happened in Tehran.

The Iranian government continued its efforts to block all coverage of events here, but information began to trickle out from eyewitnesses and on social networking sites. The most vivid image to emerge was contained in a video posted on several Web sites that showed a young woman with her face covered in blood. Text posted with the video said she had been shot. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the video.

A group called The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported on its Web site that injured protestors were being arrested as they sought medical treatment at hospitals, saying doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities.

In the only official news to emerge from Iran Sunday morning, The Associated Press reported that the government announced on state television it had arrested members of the exiled opposition group, Mujahideen Khalq, for setting fires and destroying public property.

Iranian officials have said they are concerned that terrorist groups would try to take advantage of the unrest to carry out acts of sabotage.

The relative calm Sunday morning followed a day of violent clashes unfolded on a day of extraordinary tension across Iran. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared at a demonstration in southern Tehran and called for a general strike if he were to be arrested. “I am ready for martyrdom,” he told supporters.

Mr. Moussavi again called for nullifying the election’s results, and opposition protesters swore to continue pressing their claims of a stolen election against Iran’s embattled and increasingly impatient clerical leadership in Iran’s worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reaffirmed the election results as valid and said there would be “bloodshed” if street protests continued.

Separately, state-run media reported that three people were wounded when a suicide bomber attacked at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the southern part of the city, several miles from the scheduled protests. The report of the blast could not be independently confirmed.

Iran’s divisions played out on the streets. Regular security forces stood back and urged protesters to go home to avoid bloodshed, while the feared pro-government militia, the Basij, beat protesters with clubs and, witnesses said, electric prods.

In some places, the protesters pushed back, rushing the militia in teams of hundreds: At least three Basijis were pitched from their motorcycles, which were then set on fire. The protesters included many women, some of whom berated as “cowards” men who fled the Basijis. There appeared to be tens of thousands of protesters in Tehran, far fewer than the mass demonstrations early last week, most likely because of intimidation.

The street violence appeared to grow more intense as night fell, and there were unconfirmed reports of multiple deaths. A BBC journalist at Enghelab (Revolution) Square reported seeing one person shot by the security forces. “If they open fire on people and if there is bloodshed, people will get angrier,” said a protester, Ali, 40. “They are out of their minds if they think with bloodshed they can crush the movement.”

Mr. Obama’s statement was his strongest to date on the post-election turmoil in Iran. Saying that “each and every innocent life” lost would be mourned, he added: “Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

“Martin Luther King once said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian people’s belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

Journalists were banned from leaving their offices to report on the protests. A reporter from an American news organization said she had been called by a member of the Basij militia warning her not to go to the venue for the Saturday rally because the situation would be dangerous and there could be fatalities.

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This article was written by Michael Slackman in Cairo, Robert F. Worth in Beirut, Sharon Otterman in New York and Alan Cowell in Paris based on first-hand accounts from Tehran.

Posted in: News,World News