Footage of the protests in Tehran was captured on mobile phones
Clinton praises Iran protesters
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed her firm support for the thousands of opposition supporters who protested in Iran’s capital on Monday.
Mrs Clinton said they deserved to have “the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt” and that Iran had to “open up” its political system.
One person was reportedly shot dead in the violent clashes between protesters and security forces in central Tehran.
Dozens were detained, and opposition leaders were placed under house arrest.
The BBC received reports of banned demonstrations in other Iranian cities, including Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz.
In their first major show of dissent December 2009, when eight people were killed, thousands of opposition supporters gathered at Tehran’s Azadi Square on Monday in solidarity with the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
They chanted: “Death to dictators”.
At the scene
Riding on the back of a motorbike, holding my mobile to take video footage, I went to central Tehran on Monday afternoon. My driver skilfully found back alleys to reach Azadi (Freedom) Square, the Iranian counterpart of Egypt’s Tahrir Square.
Thousands of people made their way amicably and silently towards the square, most of them young. Many wore trainers, suggesting they were anticipating having to run away from the security forces to escape arrest.
Riot police began to disperse the crowd before they even started the rally. Men on motorbikes belonging to the police and Republican Guards charged the protesters and beat them severely with batons. However, this merely emboldened them.
When the troops fired tear gas at the crowd, it became very difficult to breathe. Some girls and women fainted. Many of the protesters were also detained. Others set rubbish bins on fire to combat the effects of the gas.
My driver was hit by a paintball fired by a policeman and lightly injured, but he was still able to drive me back to the office. Once there, I was shocked to see that official and semi-official news agencies were saying everything was normal when for a couple of hours, there had been total chaos.
But the BBC’s Mohsen Asgari, who was at the rally, says it was not long before riot police fired tear gas, while men on motorbikes charged the crowd with batons.
Witnesses told the Associated Press new agency that at least three protesters had been wounded by bullets, with dozens of others taken to hospital as a result of the beatings.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency meanwhile reported that one person was shot dead by protesters and several others wounded.
Opposition websites said hundreds of people were arrested. There has been no official confirmation.
As night fell, hundreds of riot police remained on the streets of the capital.
Later in Washington, Mrs Clinton told reporters that the US administration “very clearly and directly” supports the protesters.
“What we see happening in Iran today is a testament to the courage of the Iranian people, and an indictment of the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime – a regime which over the last three weeks has constantly hailed what went on in Egypt,” she said.
Mrs Clinton said the US had the same message for the Iranian authorities as it did for those in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down after 29 years in power by nationwide mass protests.
“We are against violence and we would call to account the Iranian government that is once again using its security forces and resorting to violence to prevent the free expression of ideas from their own people,” she said.
Thousands defied the government’s ban on demonstrations and gathered in Tehran “We think that there needs to be a commitment to open up the political system in Iran, to hear the voices of the opposition and civil society,” she added.
Earlier on Monday, police placed the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, under house arrest and blocked access to his home.
His website said they intended to prevent the former prime minister attending the Tehran rally.
Fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament and a senior cleric, is also reportedly being held under house arrest.
Both men disputed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, which triggered protests that drew the largest crowds in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The authorities responded by launching a brutal crackdown.
The opposition says more than 80 of its supporters were killed over the following six months, a figure the government disputes. Several have been sentenced to death, and dozens jailed.
Although Iran’s establishment supported the Egyptian and Tunisian protests, describing them as an “Islamic awakening” inspired by the Islamic Revolution, it said the opposition rallies were a “political move”.
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