TEHRAN, Iran — The months-long confrontation between Iran’s budding opposition movement and a hard-line government determined to stamp it out escalated sharply over the weekend, as parts of the capital became engulfed in fiery political protest and demonstrations broke out across the country on an important religious holiday.
Opposition websites reported as many as nine people killed in Tehran and the western city of Tabriz on Sunday during Ashoura, a Shiite Muslim religious commemoration of the seventh-century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. Officials put the death toll at five.
Among those allegedly shot dead by security forces or allied pro-government militias was Ali Habibi-Mousavi, described by websites as the 38-year-old nephew of oppo sition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Despite a heavy crackdown, the protest movement that emerged from Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election has grown increasingly daring, with those demanding an abolition of Iran’s Islamic system increasingly vocal even as more religious and traditional social groups identify with the opposition.
The deaths of Mousavi’s nephew and the others now set the stage for more demonstrations coinciding with Habibi-Mousavi’s burial today and the religiously significant third-, seventh- and 40th-day grieving ceremonies for him. Such cycles of protests linked to mourning ceremonies for slain protesters dislodged Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than three decades ago.
Police denied opening fire on demonstrators, accusing “mysterious” forces of being behind any violence. Iranian officials confirmed 300 arrests and five dead in the clashes, but said several appeared to have died in accidents.
A television news report maintained the official line that the ongoing wave of anti-government protests is a conspiracy hatched by Iranian exiles and foreign governments.
