In Tehran, according to an Iranian opposition website, violent clashes between security forces and opposition demonstrators are said to have been taking place in many parts of the capital.

The reformist Jaras website said forces including the Revolutionary Guard also broke the windows of cars whose drivers were honking horns. It said riot police fired tear gas to disperse people who used a ceremony of religious mourning to try to rekindle anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic.

A French news agency journalist reported that police in downtown Tehran broke up a demonstration using batons, and that arrests were made. He said people were chanting “death to the dictator,” their term for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The reports could not be immediately verified by other independent sources.

Six months after a disputed election plunged Iran into political turmoil, foreign media are banned from covering protests. Religious ceremonies are traditionally held across Iran on the day before Ashura, a politically important Shi’ite religious commemoration. Tension has been mounting in Iran after the death a week ago of a leading dissident cleric, a fierce critic of the clerical establishment.

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