Mourning ceremonies & security services and Basiji militia brutalities

Today is the third day of mourning for the death of the Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. His family were not able to hold any public ceremonies for him due to the intervention by the Basiji militias and the security services who occupied the designated mosque and intimidated the mourners and later surrounded the Ayatollah's household and tore down his posters and prevented people from entering and exiting the compound.

Today, Ayatollah Taheri of Esfahan announced a commomeration to be held in a mosque in Esfahan. also in Ayatollah Montazeri's hometown, Najaf Abad near Esfahan, people gathered to do the same. In both these places people and the security services and the militias were engaged in heavy battles with teargas and batons. So far according to the sources about 50 people have been detained but the crowd is still on the streets chanting anti-government slogans. Commomerating a person who has recently passed away is a common practice in the Islamic tradition but the Iranian authorities who call themselves Muslems did not let the family and supporters of the Ayatollah to performe the tradition.

Also, the wave of unrest and arrests in Iran is not slowing down. On the way to Ghom to attend the funeral on Sunday evening, some of the civil rights activists were taken away from the moving buses and sent to the detention centres. Ahmed Ghabel a writer and Mahboubeh Abasgholizadeh, women's rights activist, Shiva Nazar Ahari and Koohyar Goodarzi human rights activists were among them. Mahboubeh was later released but the rest are still being held.

Some of the activists who have been detained earlier on have been subjected to brutal tortures to 'confess' and give names. Among them is Foad Shams a blogger who is said to be under severe torture to give away his friends names.

We urge the international community to raise their voices against the suppression of the Iranian human rights and civil society activists. We urge people of the world to support the Iranians to have a free and demoncratic country. This will be helpful to the peace and stability of the region and the world as a whole. We will not be able to achieve freedom and democracy unless we have allies among the peoples of the world who should press their governments to stop dealings with the current regime. We will be able to gain our freedom and democracy if we are supported by the peoples of the world.