Deaths and fury in Iran protests

The nationwide protests during the holiday commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, Shi’ite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest and among the largest since the uprisings that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election in June, witnesses said. Hundreds of people were reported wounded in cities across the country, and Tehran police said they had made 300 arrests.

The authorities’ decision to use deadly force on the Ashura holiday infuriated many Iranians, and some said the violence appeared to galvanize more traditional religious people who had not been part of the protests until then. Historically, Iranian rulers have honored Ashura’s prohibition of violence, even during wartime.

In Tehran, dense crowds marched down a central avenue at midmorning, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted “death to Khamenei,’’ referring to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

They refused to retreat, even as the police fired tear gas, charged them with batons, and fired warning shots. The police then opened fire directly into the crowd, opposition websites said, citing witnesses.

At least five people were killed in Tehran, four in the northwestern city of Tabriz, and one in Shiraz in the south, the websites reported. Photographs of several victims were circulated widely.

One of the dead was Ali Moussavi, the 43-year-old nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Unlike the other protesters, Moussavi appeared to have been killed by assassins in a gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family.

Moussavi was first run over by a sport utility vehicle outside his home, Makhmalbaf wrote on his website. Five men then emerged from the car, and one of them shot Moussavi. Government officials took the body late Sunday and warned the family not to hold a funeral, Makhmalbaf wrote.

In some parts of Tehran, protesters pushed police back, hurling rocks and capturing several police cars and motorcycles, which they set on fire. Videos posted to the Internet showed scenes of mayhem, with trash containers burning and groups of protesters attacking Basij militia volunteers amid a din of screams.

One video showed a group of protesters setting a police station aflame in Tehran. Another showed people carrying off the body of a dead protester, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.’’

By late afternoon, coils of black smoke rose from dozens of street fires over central Tehran, and smaller groups of protesters continued to skirmish with police and Basij militia. In the evening, loudspeakers in Imam Hussein Square, where most of the clashes took place, announced that gatherings of more than three people were banned, witnesses said.

There were scattered reports of police officers surrendering or refusing to fight. Several videos posted on the Internet show officers holding up their helmets and walking away from the disturbances, as protesters pat them on the back in appreciation.

In one photograph, a police officer can be seen holding his arms up and wearing a bright green headband, the signature color of the opposition movement.

Tehran police denied firing on protesters and in an official statement late yesterday said five people had been killed “in suspicious ways.’’

Ahmadreza Radan, deputy commander of state security forces in Tehran, said dozens of police officers had been injured and “some were killed,’’ the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.

Protests and clashes also broke out in the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Arak, Tabriz, Najafabad, Babol, Ardebil, and Orumieh, opposition websites said.

Foreign journalists have been banned from covering the protests, and the reports could not be independently verified.

If the 10 deaths are confirmed, it would be the highest toll since the summer, when huge crowds took to the streets to protest what they said was massive fraud in the presidential election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The White House condemned what it called the “unjust suppression’’ of civilians by the Iranian government yesterday.

“Hope and history are on the side of those who peacefully seek their universal rights, and so is the United States,’’ said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The turmoil revealed an opposition movement that is becoming bolder and more direct in its challenge to Iran’s governing authorities. Protesters deliberately blended their political message with the day’s religious one yesterday, alternating antigovernment slogans with ancient cries of mourning for Imam Hussein.

“This is the month of blood; Yazid will fall,’’ the protesters shouted, equating Khamenei with Yazid, the ruler who ordered Imam Hussein’s killing.

The protests may have received a boost from the death last week of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a patriarch of Iran’s Islamic revolution who became a fierce critic of the country’s rulers, especially in recent months.

His memorials have brought out not only the young activists and students who have dominated the protests in recent months, but older and more conservative people who revered him for reasons of faith, as well as politics.