Clashes in Tehran on key anniversary
Opposition supporters clash with police and pro-government militia as Iran marks 30 years since capture of US embassy
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Wednesday, 04, Nov 2009 11:41
By Matthew Champion.
Opposition supporters have clashed with police and pro-government militia in Iran as the country marks 30 years since the capture of the US embassy.
Footage published via YouTube and Twitter showed riot police using batons and deploying tear gas against protestors in a central Tehran square.
More than 2,000 people wearing green scarves or armbands to associate themselves with opposition figurehead Mir Hossein Mousavi and chanting "God is great" - a statement of defiance - marched in Haft-e-Tir square.
Elsewhere in Tehran, hundreds of government supporters celebrated the 30th anniversary of seizing the US embassy by Islamic students, which led to 52 Americans being held hostages for 444 days and the end of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The pro-opposition demonstration is the largest for two months in Iran, which faced its biggest political crisis since the Islamic Revolution this year following the bitterly-disputed June 12th presidential election.
Supporters of Mr Mousavi and the opposition candidate himself claim he was denied the presidency by widespread fraud, allowing incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be re-elected.
Mass protests greeted the results, which activists claim led to the deaths of 72 demonstrators in the resulting crackdown.
In a message to Iran, which marks the US embassy capture as a public holiday, Barack Obama said it was time for its people to choose a different future.
"It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people," the US president said.
"We have heard for 30 years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for."