|
|
World News
|
|
Dozens injured in Iran election result dispute
TEHRAN, Mar 15 (Reuters) Three days of unrest sparked by the revision of results in February's parliamentary elections have left dozens of people injured in a town on Iran's Caspian coast, local media reported today.
The Etemad daily newspaper said 68 people had been hurt, six seriously, during clashes with police.
Protests began in the town of Fereydounkenar on Friday after the hardline Guardian Council, an oversight body with sweeping powers, annulled the votes cast in three ballot boxes, handing victory to the incumbent conservative member of parliament.
Protesters set fire to cars and attacked buildings including the home of the town's Friday Prayer leader, the ISNA students' news agency said.
Anti-riot police fired plastic bullets to disperse the protesters, ISNA said.
''The protesters are not anti-regime. They think their rights have been violated and are asking the Guardian Council why that has happened,'' Mohammad-Ali Panjeh-Fouladgaran, the provincial governor, told.
The February 20 parliament vote sparked controversy in Iran after the Guardian Council barred more than 2,000 mostly reformist candidates from standing.
Reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami branded the election unfair and many reformists boycotted the vote.
Conservative candidates, who accuse reformists of trying to turn the Islamic Republic into a secular state, won a comfortable majority of seats in the ballot, reversing their electoral loss to reformists in 2000.
Isolated protests over the election have sparked violent confrontations in several Iranian cities. Eight people died in two separate clashes in southern Iran shortly after the vote.
|
webmaster@deepikaglobal.com
|
|
