Clashes broke out Monday between police and the crowd at the funeral at Qom Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the opposition figures who died Saturday.
The Iranian opposition rallied behind one of his spiritual figures. While tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people attended Monday's funeral of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in the holy city of Qom (south of Tehran), the procession has quickly become something of a hostile demonstration in office resulting in clashes with security forces.
The two main leaders of the Iranian opposition, Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karoubi, had called for popular participation at the funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri, who died Saturday at age 87 following a disease. Since Sunday, thousands of Iranians have responded by flocking to this Qom. As usual before each important event in Iran, foreign journalists were banned from visiting the holy city and Internet connections were severely disrupted, making it difficult to access sites from the opposition. "Montazeri is not dead, it is government that is dead," chanted the crowd who wore many scarves, green scarves and bracelets, signs of rallying opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The police then intervened and the protesters responded by throwing stones, telling the opposition websites.
An emblematic figure of the opposition Reform
Hossein Ali Montazeri, however, is not a historical figure of the opposition to the regime of mullahs. Former Dolphin Imam Khomeini, founder of the system, Grand Ayatollah was one of the highest religious figures of the country and one of the theoreticians of the Islamic revolution of 1979. But his denunciations of the excesses of the regime earned him the disgrace in 1989. Forced to leave Iran, he spent the rest of his life on probation in Qom, where he taught theology. Very critical of President Ahmadinejad, has challenged his re-election and denounced the repression of demonstrations. On December 16 again, he regretted "the death of innocent people," the arrest of political activists demanding freedom "and" illegal show trial "of opponents.
Her outspokenness in a locked regime and its commitment to freedom had come to make Montazeri an emblematic figure of the reformist opposition within the regime. Proof, if needed, its importance, the official media announced his death have ignored the title of Grand Ayatollah, some people openly calling "sir" Montazeri. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has praised the "accomplished theologian, but by asking the" divine mercy "for" difficult time "experienced by the religious, referring to his disagreements with the regime