Tehran, December 28: Eight people were killed during anti-government protests in Tehran, the state-run English language Press TV said Monday quoting a senior security official.
Iranian state television earlier gave a contradictory toll of at least 15 killed.
State television said 10 of those killed during Sunday’s fierce clashes in the Iranian capital were members of “anti-revolutionary terrorist” groups.
The other five who died were killed by “terrorist groups” in a “suspicious act,” the report said.
Iranian reformist websites said Sunday that security forces killed a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi while police confirmed that five people had died in what turned into the bloodiest showdown between protesters and security forces in months.
The opposition said that those who died were killed when security forces opened fire after firing tear gas and using batons against protesters in central Tehran.
The crackdown followed stern warnings by the authorities that they would crush attempts to use processions linked to Sunday’s commemorations for Ashura, Shiite Islam’s holiest day, as a launchpad for protests.
Opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s June 12 re-election, which they say was massively rigged, have used a series of government-backed public events to mount protests, many of which have ended in clashes with police.
In a further crackdown on the opposition, Ebrahim Yazdi, who served as foreign minister at the start of the 1979 Islamic revolution, was arrested at his home early Monday, the Rahesabz website reported.
Yazdi, secretary general of the outlawed but tolerated Iran Freedom Movement, “was arrested at home and taken to an unknown place early Monday morning by security agents,” the website said.
“He was summoned to an intelligence ministry office (last) Monday but did not go,” it added, without elaborating.
Opposition supporters were meanwhile on Monday preparing for the funerals of those killed, among them Seyed Ali Mousavi, the 35-year-old nephew of Mousavi, who according to reformist website Parlemannews was shot in his heart during the clashes.
Funerals have in the past sparked further anti-government protests.
Tehran police had on Sunday reported five people “suspiciously killed”. “Specialists are trying to identify the suspect perpetrators of this incident,” said a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.
Police arrested more than 300 people, deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan told state television.
He confirmed four people had died but said one had fallen off a bridge and two had died in car accidents. The fourth had died of bullet wounds, but he denied that the security forces were responsible.
“As the police were not using firearms this is suspicious and it is being investigated,” he said.
The last deaths during street protests in Tehran were on June 20. The opposition says that at least 72 people were killed in protests in June.
The authorities put the figure at 36, including members of the basij militia. Three protesters also died in custody after being beaten.
The White House condemned “violent and unjust suppression” of civilians.
The French foreign ministry criticised the police action against “simple protestors” and called for a political solution.
Italy’s foreign ministry condemned the crackdown and called for political dialogue in “in a framework respecting human rights, among them in particular, the respect for life.”
—Agencies