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IRAN: Videos show protests by mourners after death of Ayatollah Montazeri’s wife

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On the streets of the holy city of Qom on Sunday, supporters of the late Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri marched while chanting politically charged slogans in observance of the recent death of the cleric’s wife, Banoo Rabbani.

Rabbani, 83, died Saturday.

‘The blood that is on our veins is a gift to our people,’ the mourners chant in the video footage posted above.

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Dissident cleric Montazeri’s death in December sparked huge protests across the country.

Montazeri’s son Saeed told the Persian-language opposition news website Rahesabz.net that the burial ceremony for his mother was held amid heavy security. Plainclothes security forces barred the grieving family from paying its final respects by grabbing Rabbani’s body, according to Saeed.

Still, a large number of supporters gathered at Qom’s Masoumeh shrine, where the family planned to bury the matriarch. Security forces and plainclothes militiamen were out in full force

“By this regrettable action, they clearly demonstrated their fear and showed that they are even afraid of a lifeless body and her burial ceremony,” Saeed said.

“The governmental agents and the countless security forces that were present, by applying force and intimidation, buried the body of our departed mother however they wanted and wherever they wanted and practically made it impossible for us and the people to hold a funeral ceremony,” he said, according to a translation of his comments on opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s Facebook page.

A number of protesters reportedly were arrested.

-- Los Angeles Times

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Videos: Crowds gather Sunday for the funeral of Banoo Rabbani, the late wife of dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Montazeri died in December. Credit: YouTube

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