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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Clashes at Montazeri funeral | |
| 2009-12-22 | |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Hard-line vigilantes clashed with mourners at the funeral of Iran's top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in the city of Qom on Monday, opposition websites reported. "The present crowd in the procession has been estimated at hundreds of thousands of people and they were also shouting slogans in his support, and also in support of (opposition leader) Mirhossein Mousavi," Jaras website reported. The report could not be independently verified as foreign media have been banned from travelling to Qom for the event.
Mousavi and another opposition leader urged their supporters on Sunday to attend the funeral and announced a day of national mourning for Montazeri, the same reformist website reported earlier. The official IRNA news agency, in its first report on the funeral procession, said mourners carrying the coffin "calmly" entered Qom's main religious shrine where prayers would be held. It did not give any details on the size of the crowd. Fars, a semi-official news agency, later said Montazeri had been buried at the shrine. Hard-line and pro-government "Ansar Hezbollah groups entered the crowd and wanted to derail the slogans and disrupt the ceremony. They went away after clashing with some people," another reformist website said. The authorities have slowed Internet connections down to a crawl, as has been the case whenever opposition demonstrations are anticipated. | |
| Posted by:Fred |