Epress.am News from Armenia
Thousands of Iranians gathered in several locations across Tehran Monday, heeding calls in recent days by opposition leaders to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters, who recently toppled their own regimes, reports The Wall Street Journal.
About 4,000 people had gathered in Azadi Square in central Tehran and more were streaming in, with dozens of police on motor bikes circling the square, according to eyewitnesses, opposition websites and internet posts. Witnesses said a few thousand protesters had also gathered at Imam Hussein square, sitting down on the ground and breaking out in chants when police tried to disperse them.
By mid-afternoon, witnesses said crowds were swelling in central Tehran, with people silently marching in large numbers toward Azadi Square. Shopkeepers and restaurants along the route have been shut down, and security forces surrounded the campus of Tehran University, preventing students from entering.
But by mid-afternoon, these uniformed security forces had lined many Tehran streets, diverting traffic and blocking all access — on foot and by car — to Azadi Square, according to eyewitnesses. Metro stations near the protest route been closed.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi had been placed under house arrest early Monday, with communication lines to their home and mobile phones cut off, according to opposition websites. On Sunday, Mousavi and Karoubi issued a statement upholding the call for a show of force in the street, despite threats from the government that it would crackdown again.
Despite backing uprisings across the Arab world over the last month, the Iranian government has refused to allow protests in the country, fearing a repeat of the unrest following the June 2009 disputed elections. However, several groups have said they will rally today to support ongoing protests in Arab nations.
The renewed protests coincided with plans for demonstrations across the Gulf in tiny Bahrain, which has cultural and religious ties to Iran because of its majority Shia Muslim population, RFE/RL reports.