Iran: Opposition supporters mark Int'l Women's Day

At least 10 opposition supporters detained in Tehran rally; in Ankara, some 2,000 protestors demand end to 'honor crimes,' violence against Turkish women; hundreds of Lebanese women call on Hezbollah to lay down arms

Dudi Cohen|Published: 03.08.11 , 17:35

VIDEO - Hundreds of opposition supporters took to the streets of Tehran on Tuesday to mark International Women's Day. According to one report, Iranian security forces fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowd. At least 10 protestors have been arrested.

Eyewitness told CNN that thousands of police officers and members of the feared Basij militia deployed throughout the Iranian capital.

Iranian police beat protestors, Tuesday

Iranian opposition supporters have held a number of demonstrations this past month. A number of them were killed during clashes with security forces. Last week rallies were held in a number of Iranian cities against the arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi.

Women's Day rallies were held in other Mideast countries as well. In Ankara, Turkey, about 2,000 women protested against "honor crimes" and violence against women in the country.

The women marched downtown chanting “Stop women killings” and “Don’t turn our wedding dresses into shrouds,” an AFP photographer said.

'Not a political organisation'

The demonstrators demanded stronger laws against the perpetrators of honor crimes, which are committed against women purportedly to restore a family’s honor.

In Istanbul, hundreds of women marched at the central Taksim Square raising similar demands. Local media said several demonstrations were held across the country.

On Sunday, hundreds of Lebanese women defied Hezbollah and demonstrated in downtown Beirut in support of an international tribunal investigating the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

The women, all supporters of the liberal March 14 Movement led by caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain primer, formed a human chain stretching from Hariri’s grave to the spot where his car exploded in February 2005, killing him and 22 others.

“The people want to drop the arms,” the women chanted, a takeoff on the pan-Arab call “the people want to topple the regime.” The women were referring to weapons held by Hezbollah, which has refused to give them up claiming they were legitimately used in their fight against Israel.

In Sudan, riot police arrested more than 40 women minutes after they started a protest against rape and rights abuses on Tuesday, witnesses said in the latest sign of a crackdown on dissent.

Sudan has regularly shut down demonstrations in the past, but the response of its security agencies has taken on an extra urgency since mass protests in neighbouring Libya and Egypt.

Sudanese women's groups called the protest against discriminatory laws on Tuesday -- marked as International Women's Day across the world.

Before the rally, organisers said they were enraged by reports of the arrest and rape of Safiya Eshaq, a supporter of anti-government activist group Girifna, in Khartoum last month.

Up to 60 women, waving banners and shouting slogans, gathered in the middle of one the busiest streets in Khartoum suburb Omdurman just before 4 pm (1300 GMT), watched by more than 250 police and security officers said a Reuters witness.

Within 10 minutes officers bundled 30 of the women into the back of a truck. When the women continued to protest inside the vehicle, officers entered and beat some of them with batons, said the witness.

Police later rounded up around 12 women in the streets around the scene and drove them to a police station, said the witness.

"It is a demonstration against women's discrimination. It is not a political organisation," protest organiser Rasha Awad told Reuters before the event.