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Thursday, July 09, 2009
Defiance continues

Alan Cowell and Michael Slackman of The New York Times are reporting that according to witnesses, protesters "began massing in the streets of Tehran on Thursday evening, as an initially festive demonstration quickly turned grim, witnesses said.

Tear gas was fired into Lelah Park, they said, and a woman whose coat was covered in blood ran from Revolution Square, one of the main gathering spots during the initial weeks of protests over the June 12 election. She said that police officers were beating protesters.

It was the first protest in 11 days, and was called to commemorate the 10th anniversary of violent confrontations at Tehran University when protesting students were beaten and jailed. Iranian authorities had announced earlier that the demonstration was illegal and would be met with a “crushing response.”

But at the end of the work day, hundreds of protesters began packing the streets of one area of Tehran, chanting, clapping and sitting in jammed traffic as drivers honked their horns, witnesses said. Families brought their children. Many held a hand in the air in the defiant V for victory.

The security forces quickly moved in.

Thursday’s demonstration came against a backdrop of rising anxiety and continued arrests. According to Press TV, a reformist member of Parliament, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, said the government’s approach — holding prisoners incommunicado — had left families of the accused frightened. And the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a group based in New York, said the government was continuing to make arrests.

The report also says that prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, was taken into custody around 4pm yesterday.

“The Iranian government is trampling over every rule of due process,” Hadi Ghaemi, the group’s spokesman, said in a statement. “Not only are hundreds of detainees in incommunicado detention, in solitary confinement and possibly under torture, but their lawyers are rapidly being added to their ranks.”

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