Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners turned the funeral procession of the country’s most senior dissident cleric into an anti-government protest yesterday, chanting “death to the dictator” and slogans in support of the opposition amid heavy security.
Witnesses said security forces clamped down in Iran’s holy city of Qom, where massive crowds streamed in for the funeral rites for Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died on Sunday at age 87.
One opposition Web site reported clashes outside Montazeri’s home between security forces and mourners, who threw stones. Iranian authorities have barred foreign media from covering the rites, and witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.
Montazeri’s death pushed Iranian authorities into a difficult spot. They were obliged to pay respects to one of the patriarchs of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the one-time heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
But officials also worried that Montazeri’s memorials could become new rallying points for opposition demonstrations.
The ayatollah broke with Iran’s clerical leadership and became a vehement critic, denouncing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling the postelection crackdown the work of a dictatorship.
Many mourners shouted protest cries including “Death to the Dictator” in displays of anger against Iran’s ruling establishment during the procession in Qom, a city of shrines and clerical seminaries about 100km south of Tehran, witnesses said.
Marchers held aloft black-rimmed portraits of Montazeri and green banners and wrist bands in a powerful show of support for the Green Movement of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who attended the funeral along with another prominent protest leader, Mahdi Karroubi.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
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