Iran opposition holds more protests

Defiant opposition supporters staged fresh protests in Tehran yesterday , witnesses said, after powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called for detainees held in a post-election crackdown to be freed.

Mehdi Karroubi, a defeated presidential candidate, came under attack from men in plainclothes on his way to the prayers, according to his son Hossein and Fars news agency.

Thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, chanting "Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein!" and "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), demonstrated around Tehran University where Rafsanjani led Friday prayers attended by the former premier and Karroubi, witnesses said.

The demonstrations were held in defiance of a ban slapped on such gatherings by the Iranian authorities in the wake of deadly unrest sparked by the disputed June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The witnesses said riot police and Islamist vigilantes were deployed on streets near the university to prevent the demonstrations, but protesters managed to evade them to stage brief gatherings.

They said several people had been arrested, including a leading lawyer and women's rights campaigner, Shadi Sadr, and that police had fired tear-gas and paintball bullets to disperse crowds.

"Shadi called me from an unknown location and said she was arrested by plainclothes officials who forcefully got her into a car," Hossein Nilchian, her husband, said.

Ms Sadr, 34, is a well-known women's rights activist who has campaigned against one of Iran's internationally-condemned practices of death by stoning for adulterers. She has defended several such convicts as a lawyer.

Rights group Amnesty International called for Ms Sadr's immediate release, after what it called her violent arrest.

"Shadi Sadr was walking with a group of women's rights activists along a busy road when unidentified plain-clothed men pulled her into a car," it said in a statement.

"She lost her headscarf and coat in the ensuing struggle but managed briefly to escape. She was quickly recaptured and beaten with batons before being taken away in the car to an unknown location."

Thousands of people, many wearing green bands showing support for Mr Mousavi, converged on the area surrounding Tehran University, including many families with children, witnesses said.

One witness said policemen smashed the windows of several cars whose drivers were sounding their horns, a tactic adopted by protesters. The crowds later dispersed.

The post-election anti-Ahmad-inejad protests held last month set off the worst crisis in the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution.

The ensuing violence left at least 20 people dead, many scores wounded and hundreds arrested, according to official figures.

Friday's weekly prayers offered a new opportunity for opposition supporters to stage demonstrations.

They last took the streets on July 9 to commemorate the anniversary of bloody student unrest in 1999.