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A relative of Iran's opposition leader says the body of the leader's nephew has been removed from a hospital without the family's permission, a day after he was slain in an anti-government protest. Reza Mousavi said Monday that the body of his brother, Ali Mousavi, was taken from a Tehran hospital, possibly by authorities seeking to deter mourners from organizing more protests around his funeral. The slain man is the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Cannot post content from source. here is link to story: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ali-ansari-this-is-a-crucial-moment-the-government-is-out-of-control-1851466.htm

Large video collection of today's pro-Democracy protests in Iran. Video collection here

At least 15 people were killed during massive anti-government protests in Tehran when opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the streets, Iranian state television reported Monday. The report said 10 people killed during Sunday's fierce clashes in the Iranian capital were members of "anti-revolutionary terrorist" groups, apparently referring to opposition supporters. The other five who died were killed by "terrorist groups" in a "suspicious act," the report said, without elaborating. Iranian security forces stormed a series of opposition offices on Monday, rounding up at least seven prominent anti-government activists in a new crackdown against the country's reformist movement, opposition...

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2009 Death to the Dictator The Iranian people are once again in what, at least to the outside world, seems just short of full-scale revolt. Some dramatic video out of Iran today, none more so than this violent four-minute clip showing a crowd of people cutting down three men that are being hanged in the street by some kind of police force. They seem to succeed before the police open fire -- the video is graphic. The New York Times has multiple reports of government forces firing into unarmed crowds. Just three months ago, Hilary Clinton was...

(No. 397 – December 27, 2009 – 4:35 p.m. EST) The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding Iran’s crackdown on protesters in Tehran: “Canada is deeply concerned by the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown today, December 27, against Iranian citizens who were exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly on the occasion of Ashura. “Iranian security forces once again used intimidation and violence against citizens of Iran. The Iranian regime’s continued effort to restrict freedom of expression and assembly, thereby depriving its citizens of their rights, is deplorable, especially on the holy...

Must see fresh videos of Iraninan Revolution in progress. http://www.youtube.com/user/2009IranRevolution

Nine dead and STILL no word of support from Obama. I guess he is too busy playing golf on the US Marines golf course, which of course means that Marines on R & R from combat CANNOT PLAY ON THEIR OWN GOLF COURSE.

security forces being stormed the people rise up more and more my life is only for iran they chant

Opposition sources in Iran say that at least four protesters have been shot dead in violent clashes between anti-government crowds and police. They said security forces opened fire on protesters as some of the fiercest clashes in months erupted in the capital, Tehran. The police have denied there had been any fatalities. Opposition parties had urged people to take to the streets as the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura reached a climax. People were chanting "Khamenei will be toppled", opposition sources said, a reference to Iran's Supreme Leader.

On Saturday night in Tehran, members of a pro-government militia broke into a mosque where former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist leader, was speaking, forcing him to break off before concluding his remarks. As my colleague Nazila Fathi reports, “about 50 vigilantes armed with chains, batons and pepper spray disrupted a speech by Mr. Khatami at Jamaran Mosque in Tehran, the home mosque of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.”

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in the capital Sunday, killing at least four people in the fiercest clashes in months, opposition Web sites and witnesses said.

Opposition Jaras website claims security forces attacked a building housing Isna, Iranian news agency, as demonstrators sought shelter IRAN was braced for more violent clashes today as opposition demonstrators planned further mass rallies, which are expected to lead to fresh confrontations between protesters and security forces. Tension was running high at rallies yesterday in which soldiers of the elite Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basiji used tear gas and pepper spray and fired warning shots into the air to disperse demonstrators chanting anti-government slogans in three areas of central Tehran. They also smashed the windows of cars that were hooting...

Today, the Islamic regime in Iran faces what could be a perfect storm. A respected opposition leader is being mourned, it is the most holy day of the year for Shiites, and the pro-democracy Green Movement is more energized and radicalized than ever. The spirit of liberation is alive and well. ...One of our New Year's wishes is that peaceful change comes to Iran, but the regime will do everything in its power to prevent that from happening. Hopefully the reform movement will reach critical mass before the Islamic regime's nuclear program does.

Demonstrations in Esfahan and Najafabad are evidence that the opposition movement has spread beyond Tehran to include a broad cross-section of people in central Iran. Esfahan and Najafabad were the "spiritual capitals" of the late Montazeri, said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a Tehran analyst and journalist who strongly supports the opposition movement. The harsh crackdown against Montazeri's supporters has the potential to drive them deeper into the opposition camp. "What has happened was a religious reaction out of devotion and conviction" to Montazeri, he said. "While on the surface the unrest has no relation with the political agenda of the green [opposition]...

Iranian security forces and opposition activists have clashed in the centre of the capital Tehran, reformist websites and witnesses report. AFP news agency said police "sought to disperse about 200-300 people" who wanted to gather in Enghelab square. Tensions have risen since influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri died a week ago.

When I first encountered the Persian word mofangi, I struggled to grasp its meaning. It implies a certain timidity, physical weakness, and awkwardness. Seeking to put some flesh on that definition, my language tutor told me to envision Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri. "He's more than a little mofangi," remarked the tutor, expressing the condescension that well-educated, leftwing Iranians often have for the clergy who stole their revolution. That was in the mid 1980s, and Montazeri was the number two cleric in Iran, a mullah who once passionately believed in exporting Iran's revolutionary tumult and was instrumental in building the...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran banned memorials for the country's most senior dissident cleric and reiterated a stern warning to the opposition Thursday, after days of services in honor of the spiritual leader turned into street protests against the government.

Heavy clashes have been reported outside an Isfahan mosque where a memorial ceremony was due to be held in honor of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a founding architect of the Iranian Revolution and spiritual father of Iran's opposition Green Movement. The clashes come two days after a funeral ceremony for the 87-year-old Montazeri, who died on December 19 in his home in Qom, turned into a huge antigovernment protest in the holy city located southwest of the capital. Eyewitnesses tell RFE/RL that as mourners and opposition supporters arrived for today's memorial service, they found security forces and plainclothes agents...

(excerpt) From the very first days of the post-election violence, Western leaders, with President Obama in the van, chose circumspection over condemnation. Nothing — no protests about human rights abuses — could get in the way of securing a deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Iran’s programme to create a nuclear bomb. What do we have to show for this venal bargain? Very little. Untenable as this ought to be, strategically as well as morally, a more damning prospect still is emerging. The West may be about to provide a dying regime with a lifeline at the moment of its greatest...

Iranian security forces armed with batons and teargas clashed with supporters of the late dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in two central cities on Wednesday, opposition websites said. (excerpt) Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqadam warned the pro-reform opposition of "fierce" confrontation if it continued its "illegal" activities, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The reformist Jaras website said many demonstrators were injured and arrests were made during clashes in the city of Isfahan, which occurred when Montazeri supporters gathered for the traditional third day of mourning for him. "Police fired teargas to disperse people ... many people were injured...

The Iranian regime hit back viciously last night after the opposition turned the funeral of their spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, into another huge anti-government demonstration in the holy city of Qom. Men on motorbikes attacked the car carrying Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition leader, back from Qom to Tehran. They smashed the back window and injured one of his aides, a reformist website reported. Hundreds of government agents halted the memorial service for Montazeri, according to a conservative website. The assaults, which cannot be independently confirmed, came at the end of a day when the so-called Green...

Opponents of Iran's most senior dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri stopped his memorial service in a tumultuous day in Qom on Monday which saw huge protests and some shots fired, websites said. The car of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi was attacked by "plainclothes men" on motorbikes as he was returning to Tehran from the service in Qom and one member of his entourage was injured, one of the websites said. The incidents came after huge crowds of Iranians marked Montazeri's funeral in the holy city, 125 km (80 miles) south of Tehran. Websites reported scuffles between mourners...

Iran's opposition seized upon the death of one of the Islamic republic's founding fathers -- a revered ayatollah who was also a fierce critic of the nation's leadership -- to take to the streets in mourning. Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners--many chanting protest slogans--joined the funeral procession Monday for Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had described government crackdowns as the work of power-hungry despots. Iranian authorities have barred foreign media from covering the processions in the holy city of Qom for Ayatollah Montazeri, who died Sunday at age 87. But witnesses said many mourners shouted protest cries including...

Tens of thousands of Iranian mourners — many chanting protest slogans — joined the funeral procession Monday for the country's most senior dissident cleric, who had described government crackdowns as the work of power-hungry despots.

When massive numbers of Iranians took to the streets following the sham election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, the regime hoped to quash the protests with intimidation and force. It has failed. The latest evidence of the democratic movement's force? Student Day earlier this month. The roots of Student Day go back to Dec. 7, 1953, when Iranian students protested the coup that ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. The Shah's regime responded by attacking Tehran's Polytechnic University, murdering three students. Every year since, Iranian students have observed "16 Azar" (Dec. 7) to commemorate the three students killed by the Shah....

The increasing frequency of student protests in universities across the country, especially since December 7, point to the university administrators’ loss of control over the university atmosphere. Even for a while prior to the Student Day, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters had lost the chance to speak at university campuses, their speeches or question and answer sessions often being interrupted by student protests. In reaction to this situation, yesterday Mohammad Mohammadian, who head the supreme leader’s office in university affairs, called for firmer confrontation of students and professors accused by him of weakening the regime. According to a report by ILNA, speaking...

TEHRAN, Iran - Hundreds of students at Tehran University renewed anti-government protests for a second week on Sunday, accusing authorities of fabricating images of demonstrators burning photos of the Islamic Republic's revered founder.

A month ago, Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, vowed to stop further antiregime demonstrations in Iran and break what he termed "this chain of conspiracies." But this week the "chain" appeared to be as strong as ever: Students across the nation defied the general and his political masters by organizing numerous demonstrations on and off campus. The various opposition groups that constitute the pro-democracy movement have already called for another series of demonstrations on Dec. 27, a holy day on the Muslim Shiite calendar. Meanwhile, the official calendar of the Islamic Republic includes 22 days...

Day 2: Clashes at Tehran universities 2 Tehran universities attacked AUT News | Dec. 8, 2009 Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia forces attacked campuses at Tehran University and Shahid Beheshti University in the Iranian capital on Tuesday morning. Amir Kabir University of Technology (AUT) news service reported that the gates of Tehran University were opened by campus guards to allow the militia forces to pour onto campus. Today's events after pro-opposition students announced Monday that they would gather Tuesday morning to protest the violent treatment they had received at the hands of plainclothes forces during Student's Day protests at Tehran...

Iran's University Student Day has taken on new symbolism: it marks the cruelty of the Islamic Republic Yesterday, Iranian students sent a clear message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the opposition movement is very much alive. Despite the government’s ban on protests, students draped in the colour of the Green Movement gathered at universities across the country. They tore down posters of their president and chanted ‘death to the dictator’ in full knowledge that the Basij militia force, armed with tear gas and batons, would be waiting for them outside the University gates.

Reporting from Beirut - Campuses across Iran erupted in protests Monday as defiant college students chanting anti-government slogans clashed with security forces armed with clubs in a forceful new round of confrontations over the nation's disputed June presidential election. The daylong protests on National Students Day were not as large in Tehran as those that broke out in the days after the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But they took place in a larger number of cities and towns and followed weeks of ominous warnings by security officials. They continued through the day despite efforts by security forces arrayed on...

Ahead of a planned opposition rally on Monday, Iran tightened security and arrested over 20 mothers who were mourning children killed in the unrest that has broken out since the disputed June 12 elections. The mothers took part in an antigovernment protest in Leleh Park in central Tehran every Saturday since the death in June of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, whose shooting became a symbol of the government’s violent repression. The rally had been attacked by the police before, but Saturday was the first time the mothers were arrested. An opposition Web site reported that the protest was broken up by...

TEHRAN, Iran – Government opponents shouted "Allahu Akbar" and "Death to the Dictator" from Tehran's rooftops in the pouring rain on the eve of student demonstrations planned for Monday. Authorities choked off Internet access and warned journalists working for foreign media to stick to their offices for the next three days.

BEIRUT - As they gear up for a major anti-government protest Monday, Iranian students are besieged by a clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions. At the same time, authorities are intensifying enforcement of Islamic morals on women's dress and men's hair length as a way to punish political dissent.

Sometimes the smallest ideas can have the biggest impact. And so it may be in helping to push change in Iran. Almost without notice, a small initiative to help democratic reformers in Iran is moving through the U.S. Congress. The notion is disarmingly simple: With a small investment of money, the U.S. government can help Iranian citizens get around efforts by the Iranian regime to block their use of the Internet to communicate with each other and the outside world. The power of this idea became apparent amid the widespread anger in Iran over the country's disputed presidential election this...

TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian court sentenced a former vice president to six years in jail as part of a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest after the disputed June presidential election, the defendant's lawyer said Sunday.

At the height of the protests following Iran's controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government's hold on power. In A Death in Tehran, FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on Neda's life and death and the movement she helped inspire. In response to the international outcry over Neda's death...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Five people have been sentenced to death and 81 have received jail terms of up to 15 years in connection with unrest after Iran's disputed June election, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Tuesday. Citing a statement by the public relations office of Tehran's provincial court, it said those sentenced to death were affiliated to or members of 'counter-revolutionary groups'. It said the verdicts can be appealed. It was not immediately clear if the five were the same as those reported by an Iranian rights group earlier this week to have been sentenced to death. The IRIB report...

Reformist news outlets report that Ramin Pourandarjani, "physician of Iran's Kahrizak detention centre" died last Tuesday. Norooz website reports that the 26-year-old physician died in his room at the medical building of Tehran's Security Forces. Reportedly, officials announced the cause of death to be "heart failure while sleeping." According to Norooz, Dr. Pourandarjani had examined some of the victims of Kahrizak detention centre such as Mohsen Ruholamini whom he had examined prior to his death. Norooz also claims that a week after Ruholamini's death, this physician was taken into custody until he made the announcement that cause of Ruholamini's death...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot be removed from his post because his legitimacy comes from God, an official close to Iran's most powerful figure was reported Friday as saying. Khamenei, whose public persona is usually above politics, stoked controversy in Iran when he endorsed the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's presidential elections, which plunged Iran into its deepest internal crisis since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Supporters of defeated candidates staged protests that were crushed by police, saying the vote was rigged. Mojtaba Zolnour, a Khamenei representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards,...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The showdown between Iran's clerical leaders and a resilient protest movement sharpened Saturday, as opposition leaders accused the government of becoming more brutal than the shah's regime and authorities announced a new Internet crackdown. Two of Iran's top pro-reform figures said in a Web statement that police used excessive force against anti-government protesters who took to the streets last week on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has deployed a special police unit to sweep Web sites for political material and prosecute those deemed to be spreading lies, Iranian media reported Saturday, in a step clearly aimed at choking off the embattled opposition's last real means of keeping its campaign alive.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Just minutes before anti-riot police charged opposition marchers in Tehran last week, a new chant bubbled up from the crowd: "Death to Nobody." It was more than just a play on the "Death to America" slogans that are staples of Iran's political life. The cries give a sense of how much the protest movement has evolved since the raw outrage of last summer. The demonstrations have moved beyond narrow attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June. They are now drifting toward a blanket challenge of the Islamic leadership's right to rule.

Revolutions require zeal, energy and fervor - all of which need to be maintained. For the past 30 years, Iran's Islamic regime has struggled to keep its revolution alive. The latest round of the nuclear deal is no different. It is already presented as another revolutionary victory, and it might strengthen the hold of the fragile government in Teheran that is desperately seeking legitimacy since its controversial elections in June. But legitimacy, we should note, is no longer in the hands of the International Atomic Energy Agency or the international community; it is in the hands of the Iranian people....

At the height of the protests following Iran’s controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a cameraphone, then uploaded to the web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Agha Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government’s hold on power. With the help of a unique network of correspondents in and out of the country, FRONTLINE investigates the life and death of the woman whose image remains a potent symbol for those who want to...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police detained more than 100 people for "disturbing public order" during a rally this week to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday. Security forces clashed with supporters of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran on Wednesday when an annual state-organised rally marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy turned violent.

Troops fire tear gas and beat demonstrators on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy's seizure. Reporting from Tehran and Beirut - Iran's capital erupted in chaos and violence today as anti-government protestors and security forces clashed on the 30th anniversary of the seizing of the U.S. Embassy by radical students. Today's demonstration did not appear to be as large as the huge marches that erupted following the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the protest, the largest in six weeks, struck at one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic by showing that a sizable...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama noted Wednesday's 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while insisting he wants the U.S. and Iran to move beyond "suspicion, mistrust and confrontation."

Last week, I had the opportunity to address over forty members of the United States Congress with the goal to encourage their recognition of the importance of engaging the Iranian people and their ongoing struggle for human rights and democracy. I began my remarks by asking, "If the U.S. is to continue to assert engagement as the path forward in the case of Iran, whom precisely should the engagement be with?" The answer: the "Green Movement" of the Iranian people. If the U.S. supports the Iranian people in their struggle for democracy -- for human rights and liberties -- it...