Tuesday, 15 Feb 2011 12:20 PM
By Jim Meyers
Iranian lawmakers are calling for the execution of two
leading figures behind the mass anti-government protests that
have rocked Tehran and other cities in the Islamic Republic.
Members of the Iranian parliament said on Tuesday that
opposition leaders and former presidential candidates Mir
Hossein Mousavi and
Mehdi
Karroubi should be tried for sedition, an offense punishable by
death.
The two had called for Monday's demonstrations in Tehran and
elsewhere to show solidarity with recent Arab uprisings against
authoritarian governments.
Press TV aired video on Tuesday showing lawmakers chanting
“Mousavi, Karroubi, execute them.”
They also named former President Mohammad Khatami in some of the
death chants.
Iranian security forces prevented Mousavi and Karroubi from
joining the rallies by surrounding their homes in Tehran.
Mousavi's website says it has "unconfirmed reports" that
security forces arrested hundreds of people during the
demonstrations.
Witnesses say Iranian security forces fired tear gas and
paintball guns to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom
chanted "death to the dictator" — a slogan used by reformists
who protested the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
in a disputed 2009 vote, according to Voice of America.
Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency said one person was shot
and killed during the protests and several others were severely
injured. The Guardian in Britain reported that two people were
killed on Monday.
“The hands of sedition leaders are drenched in blood and they
should answer for these actions,” said Ahmad Reza Radan,
Tehran’s chief of police.
The calls for the leaders’ execution come after a deadly month
in Iran — at least 66 people were executed in January, CNN
reported. Most were killed for drug offenses, but at least three
involved political prisoners, according to a statement from the
United Nations. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi
Pillay has expressed alarm over the number of executions.
Anti-government protesters also reportedly took to the streets
in other cities on Monday, including Isfahan, Shiraz and
Kermanshah, and demonstrations have erupted elsewhere in the
Middle East following the ousting of regimes in Egypt and
Tunisia.
In Bahrain, two demonstrators have been killed in clashes with
police. One was shot dead on Tuesday outside a hospital where
mourners gathered for the funeral of a protester killed on
Monday.
The main Shiite opposition bloc in the Persian Gulf nation
walked out of parliament on Tuesday to protest the “brutal way
in which [authorities] dealt with the protesters.”
Shiites in Bahrain have complained about discrimination from the
Sunnis who rule the island nation, home to the United States
Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Anti-government demonstrations have also broken out in Yemen.
Stone-throwing Yemini protesters clashed with police on Tuesday
as they marched toward the presidential palace in Sanaa, the
capital, in the fifth day of demonstrations calling for an end
to Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule after 32 years in power.
Thousands of protesters have also demonstrated in the city of
Taiz.
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