SocraticGadfly: Iran police forbid official mourning of Neda

July 30, 2009

Iran police forbid official mourning of Neda

In the beginning of protests against Iran’s June election results, knowledgeable pundits warned that Iran’s political establishment needed to avoid making martyrs, because of seven-day and 40-day post-death memorials, the latter being especially potent in Shi’ite Islam.

Well, that’s if such memorials happen. The Iranian government forbade a public 40-day memorial for Neda, and brutally dispersed an unofficial one.

Meanwhile, the police reportedly found an underground network of contacts for outside media and shut it down. But, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, looking back to 1979, said that won’t be enough to stop the movement.

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