Iranian government supporters clashed with pro-opposition people in Tehran, state broadcaster IRIB reported on its website on Wednesday, after more than 200 Iranian legislators demanded death sentences for the two main opposition leaders for allegedly organizing the latest protests with the help of Western countries.
"Students and the people attending the funeral ceremony of the martyred student Sanee Zhaleh have clashed with a limited number of people apparently linked to the sedition movement and forced them out by chanting slogans of death to hypocrites," the state media website said.
The two main Iranian opposition leaders, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi, condemned on Wednesday the suppression of the anti-government protests and rejected any links to foreign countries.
"The Green Wave only wants to realize the values of the (1979) revolution, freedom and implementation of the constitution and this movement relies on the force of the Iranian people and not outsiders," former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi said on his website.
"I have been a soldier of this country for over 40 years and am not afraid of any threats. I am ready to pay any price needed," Karroubi wrote on his website. "But instead of threats, [the government] should release all political prisoners, stop suppressing the people, allow press freedom and be committed to your own constitution," the moderate clergyman added.
The student Sanee Zhaleh was shot dead during an opposition rally on Monday, a killing the government blamed on anti-government protesters, but which opposition websites say was done by security forces. The protests in Tehran and at least five other cities have led to the deaths of two demonstrators, the injury of several security officers and a new wave of arrests.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the main target of the protests, said Tuesday that the efforts by the opposition to arrange protest demonstrations were futile.
"There is a lot of enmity against the Iranian government, but the initiators of such events should know that they cannot undermine the status quo," Ahmadinejad told state television. "It is like trying to throw dust to the sun: the dust will just go into their eyes again."
Monday's demonstrations were the first by the opposition since December 2009. The opposition maintains that Ahmadinejad had won that year's presidential election through fraud. Dozens of demonstrators were killed and numerous former reformist officials, journalists, students and activists were jailed in the 2009 rallies.