TEHRAN, Iran - Riot police and pro-government militiamen used clubs and tear gas to forcibly break up an opposition demonstration in front of the Iranian parliament yesterday after the nation's supreme leader denounced what he described as pressure tactics aimed at overturning the recent disputed presidential election and warned that "lawlessness" would not be tolerated.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's ultimate political and religious authority, told a group of lawmakers that "neither the system nor the people will submit to bullying" over the election. In televised remarks, he called for the "restoration of order," adding that lawbreaking would lead to "dictatorship."
"Everyone should respect the law. Once lawlessness becomes a norm, things will be complicated and the interests of people will be undermined," Khamenei said. "We will not step an inch beyond the law: our law, our country's law, the Islamic Republic's law."
Hours later, large numbers of security forces, some riding motorcycles, used baton charges, beatings, tear gas, and arrests to disperse several thousand people attempting to protest the proclaimed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, witnesses said. The demonstrators were trying to gather in front of the parliament building to show support for opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says that massive fraud in the June 12 election cheated him of victory.
Security forces - including regular police from all over Tehran, helmeted riot police officers, and members of a force dubbed the "Robocops" for their full-body armor and special equipment - converged on Baharestan Square, blocked streets, and beat people to head off a planned demonstration. They were supported by members of the pro-government Basij militia and plainclothes agents who infiltrated the protesters, witnesses said.
As a helicopter circled overhead, Robocops riding motorcycles fired large handguns into the air while charging up and down Republic Street and nearby avenues, one witness said. He said it was unclear whether they were firing bullets or blanks.
Some of the police carried paintball guns, which have been used in recent demonstrations to mark protesters for arrest.
"When people started to gather, [security forces] chased them into alleys and arrested anybody they could," the witness said. In one alley, police caught up with three men and started beating them, then attacked bystanders who tried to intervene, he said.
In one confrontation between protesters and Basij members, a middle-age woman wearing a light-blue head scarf and a black coat angrily refused orders to leave. "I'm going to stay here and see how many people you kill today," she told the Basij. A plainclothes agent emerged from the crowd, cursed the woman, and took out a pair of handcuffs to arrest her.
Other people tried to stop the agent, but Basij members rushed them and beat them with clubs, the witness said.
The situation appeared to grow more violent as dusk fell, witnesses said. In Twitter feeds, people who said they witnessed the crackdown described protesters with broken limbs and cracked heads, saying there was "blood everywhere" from the beatings. One said many people had been arrested. Another said people were being beaten "like animals."
Speaking on state television, Khamenei said he insisted on "implementation of the law." He vowed that Iran would not give in to pressure "at any price." He also appealed to lawmakers to temper criticism of Ahmadinejad, saying that the Majlis, or parliament, "should help the government in such a rough journey and must not be too hard on the administration."
On one of Mousavi's Web sites, the opposition leader's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a former university dean who played an active role in her husband's presidential campaign, said that people have a constitutional right to protest and that the government should not treat them "as if martial law has been imposed in the streets."
Saying it was her duty "to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights," she called for the immediate release of people detained since the election.
Rahnavard later denied reports that she and her husband had been arrested. Mousavi has not been heard from in recent days, fueling rumors that he was under house arrest.
Amid the turmoil, the outlines of a political coalition against Ahmadinejad appeared to be taking shape. The head of Iran's parliament, former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, joined other political figures in refusing to attend a dinner organized by Ahmadinejad, the opposition newspaper Ettemaad-e Melli reported.
Larijani has criticized the government's vilification of Mousavi and is encouraging state television to give him air time to explain his views.
Another influential politician, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also spoke out against official denunciations of opposition supporters as "antirevolutionaries," a loaded term in Iran used for enemies of the state.
Iranians who took to the streets June 15 "were part of the people, part of the voters, and they had doubts on the election," the Mehr news agency quoted Ghalibaf as saying. "All of their slogans were in support of the system and the revolution, even though wrongful accusations were made about this. Everything must be explained to the people; you can't solve anything with force and violence."
Top government officials, however, continued to take a hard line on the protests. Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli yesterday accused the CIA, Britain, Israel, and an Iranian guerrilla group in exile, the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, of helping to fund "rioters." Mahsouli told the semiofficial Fars news agency that "Britain, America, and the Zionist regime were behind the recent unrest in Tehran."
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