Iran’s security forces attacked a number of reformist leaders, including Mehdi Karroubi and ex-president Mohammed Khatami on Thursday as Iranians mark the 31 anniversary of the Islamic revolution, opposition websites reported.
Karroubi’s son Hossein told AFP that his father was "not injured but his guards who were accompanying him were."
"They (police and plainclothes men) fired tear gas and were brandishing knives when they clashed with our supporters" before the cleric reached western Tehran’s Sadeghieh square from where he was supposed to join the marches.
Rahesabz website reported that also ex-president Khatami’s brother Mohammad Reza and his wife were arrested by security forces.
Security forces detained the granddaughter of late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and her husband, the Jaras opposition website reported.
Zahra Eshraqi and her husband Mohammad Reza Khatami, a brother of reformist former president Khatami, were detained during rallies marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, the website reported.
State television showed footage of men, women and children carrying banners reading "Death to America! Death to Israel!" as they headed to Azadi (Freedom) Square in southwest Tehran to mark the day the U.S.-backed shah was toppled in 1979.
This year’s Feb. 11 celebrations come as the simmering dispute with world powers over Iran’s nuclear program approaches boiling point after the Islamic republic on Tuesday defiantly began work on high-enriched uranium.
Iran has produced its first consignment of 20 percent enriched uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians gathered in central Tehran.
Celebrations to mark the day the U.S.-backed shah fell in 1979 have been traditionally festive, and an opportunity for Iranian leaders to showcase popular support for the establishment.
But this year, opposition groups — led by some of the founding fathers of the Islamic republic — look set to hijack the national day as they continue to reject the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.
The elite Revolutionary Guards and police said would leave no stone unturned in their bid to prevent opposition protests.
High alert
Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam said on Wednesday the Revolutionary Guards and Basij Islamic militia were ready for any incident. "We are fully prepared for holding a safe and glorious rally," he told Fars news agency.
"We are closely watching the activities of the sedition movement and several people who were preparing to disrupt the Feb. 11 rallies were arrested," he said, giving no details.
The U.S. State Department said it could not confirm a report in the Wall Street Journal that Iran planned to suspend Google Inc’s e-mail service in the country.
"Virtual walls won’t work in the 21st century any better than physical walls worked in the 20th century," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Internet connections have frequently been slow or unreliable during times of political turmoil over the past eight months. Tehran residents were able to access their Gmail accounts early on Thursday morning.
Display of unity
The Islamic Republic has survived many challenges, not least a 1980-88 war started by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, whose forces were propped up by Gulf Arab oil money and Western weaponry.
But the national unity forged in that trauma has long given way to rifts within clerical and political elites that widened after Ahmadinejad was re-elected. Street protests have flared periodically ever since, sometimes around official rallies.
Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says he wants Thursday’s celebration to be a show of unity and to deliver a stunning "punch" to "arrogant" powers.
Khamenei — the commander-in-chief who has the final say on all key national issues — has openly sided with Ahmadinejad, dismissed allegations of fraud in the election, blamed the West for the post-poll unrest and slammed continuing dissent as "sedition".
"The most important aim of the sedition after the election was to create a rift within the Iranian nation, but it was unable to do so and our nation’s unity remained a thorn in its eyes," he said on Monday