Funeral for Dissident Iranian Cleric Turns Into a Mass Protest

Tens of thousand streamed into the streets of Qum, Iran, to mourn Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the founders of the Islamic revolution in Iran who had more recently become aligned with the reform movement sweeping the country, the New York Times reports. But as the masses -- which some Iranian sources say numbered in the hundreds of thousands -- poured into the city, they began clashing with government security and Basij military officers, turning the funeral into a mass protest.

Sunday was marked by hundred of demonstrators marching at Tehran University, chanting "Montazeri is alive!" Former presidential candidate and opposition figure Mir Hussein Moussavi urged supporters to travel to Qum for the funeral, which began around 9 a.m. local time Monday. Iranian security forces had dispatched riot police and planned to close major highways into the city to prevent a mass outpouring, but ended up letting the mourners through unmolested.

As the funeral progressed, however, opposition Web sites reported that their had been skirmishes with police, and that government security officers had torn down funeral banners in front of Montazeri's home. Another said that demonstrators had set fire to two buses in the ayatollah's hometown, leading to clashes with riot police there. Another massive demonstration is planned for next Sunday, seven days after the ayatollah's death and an important marker in Shiite mourning rituals.

During his latter days, Montazeri had issued statements increasingly critical of the Iranian regime, declaring that it was neither Islamic nor a republic, and that its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had lost his legitimacy.