Latest Iran Protests Turn Bloody, Witnesses Say

It's like a war zone: witnesses
By A Ali,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 24, 2009 4:22 PM CDT
Latest Iran Protests Turn Bloody, Witnesses Say
Riot police in Iran's capital fired tear gas and bullets in the air today in clashes with protesters, witnesses say.   (AP Photo)

Hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot cops in a Tehran square today after Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran won’t budge on election results, the Guardian reports. Witnesses called the site a war zone, with helicopters hovering overhead as police savagely beat and arrested demonstrators. The reports could not be confirmed.

“They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband, he fainted,” a witness told CNN. “They were beating people like hell. It was a massacre.” But another told Reuters that there had been no violence. Meanwhile, opposition leaders ratcheted up their anti-government rhetoric, with Mahdi Karroubi, the more liberal candidate, calling the current regime illegitimate.

(More Iran stories.)

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