Iranian police use force against graveside rally

Iranian police fired tear gas and beat anti-government protesters with batons to disperse thousands attending a graveside memorial today for victims of post-election violence, witnesses and state television said.

Police barred opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from joining the crowd around the grave of Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman was shot to death at a June 20 to protest the disputed presidential election. The 27-year-old music student's dying moments on the pavement were filmed and circulated widely on the Web, and her name became a rallying cry for the opposition.

"Neda is alive, Ahmadinejad is dead," some of those at the ceremony chanted, referring to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who the opposition claims won the June 12 election by fraud. Witnesses said plainclothes forces charged at them with batons and tear gas, some of them chanting, "Death to those who are against the supreme leader." State television also reported that police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

Earlier, when Mousavi arrived at the site, hundreds of police surrounded him. As several hundred supporters chanted his name, police forced Mousavi to leave Behesht-e Zahra, the vast cemetery on Tehran's southern outskirts where many of those killed in the nearly 7-week-old crackdown have been buried, the witnesses said.

Afterward, his supporters remained at the grave, chanting, "Death to the dictator," as the crowd swelled to several thousand, said the witnesses who asked not to be identified out of security concerns. The police charge came when an ally of Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi - who was also a candidate in the June 12 election - tried to give a speech. Even after the clash, thousands of supporters continued to visit Soltan's grave.

Before the clashes, police arrested two prominent Iranian filmmakers when they tried to lay flowers at Soltan's grave. One of them was Jafar Panahi, best known for his film "The Circle," which was critical of the treatment of women under the Islamist government and was banned in Iran. A female documentary maker, Mahnaz Mohammadi, was arrested with him