FUNERALS OF MR. SAHHABI TURNS INTO ANTI-REGIME DEMONSTRATIONS
TEHRAN 14 Apr. (IPS) Iranian police arrested Sunday several people, mostly young ones, as the funerals of Dr Yadollah Sahhabi, a veteran politician, turned into massive anti-regime demonstrations.
Eyewitnesses said sporadic clashes also took place, as participants at the funeral chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic and its leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i.
Mr. Sahhabi, a co-founder of the of the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM)
with the late Mehdi Bazargan, Islamic Republic’s first provisory
Premier, died early Friday morning at the age of 96. Both men played a major
role in the 1951 nationalisation of oil by then Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad
Mossadeq.
An estimated crowd of between 30.000 to 50.000 took part at the funerals, sources said.
Eyewitnesses, quoted by the Los Angeles-based Iranian Students Co-ordinating Committee for Democracy said most of the clashes and arrests were made at the "Enghelab" (Revolution) square of Tehran as well as the poor and religious suburb of Shahr-Rey, where the coffin was buried.
The defunct’s body was taken from the Tehran university mosque following a funeral oration by Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Kadivar, a reformist cleric who was jailed for questioning the pre-eminence of the leader.
Thousands of people, many followers of the nationalist-religious groups and the IFM as well as students, intellectuals, scholars and dissident religious, took part at the ceremonies, which, despite the presence of large number of police and security forces, quickly turned into full-scale anti-regime demonstrations, with the crowd chanting "No to the Taleban", comparing the present Iranian leaders to those of the former Afghan regime.
Both IFM and the nationalist-religious groups were outlawed a year ago on charges of conspiring against the Islamic Republic and plots for overthrowing the regime.
As a result, more than 60 members of both groups were detained and held in prison, most of them, including Mr. Ezzatollah Sahhabi, the son of the defunct, in solitary confinement.
"Slogans, such as, "Referendum, referendum, in ast shoar mardom" (Referendum, Referendum, this is the People's slogan); "Taleban haya kon, Iran ro raha kon" (Taleban feel shame, Leave Iran alone); "Marg bar taleban, che Kabol, che Tehran" (Down with taleban, in Tehran or in Kabol); "Iran shode felestin, Mellat chera neshastin" (Iran is becoming Palestine, o people, why are you waiting); "Zendani e siassi azad bayad guardad" (political prisoners must be free) were shouted by the crowd", the SCCDI said in a dispatch, confirmed by other international agencies and sources that attended the funeral.
Thousands of young demonstrators tried to reach the funeral service while shouting slogans but were stopped by the regime’s forces from accessing the perimeters.
The Iran Freedom Movement, formed in the sixties, was very active in supporting Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution of 1979, but was ousted from power after the victory of the revolution on orders from Mr. Khomeini, who saw in IFM a dangerous challenge for his brand of regime.
Ayatollah Khameneh'i, President Mohammad Khatami and Grand Ayatollah Hoseyali Montazeri, the disgraced ex-successor-designate of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny as well as several other senior officials, journalists, politicians and political forces, both clerics and civilians, paid tribute to Mr. Sahhabi and praised his unabated struggle and Vice-president Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Ali Abtahi attended the Sunday's funeral. ENDS SAHHABI FUNERALS 14402