Miles protestan contra el gobierno en Iran. Los celulares y los text mesagges no funcionaban. Las fuerzas de seguridad se enfrentaron a los manifestantes en varias areas de Tehran, Isfahan y otras ciudades. Dispersaron a las masas con gases lacrimogenos cerca a la Universidad de Tehran y en la plaza Azadi.
Protests Gather Steam in Tehran
By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Thousands of Iranians gathered in several locations across Tehran Monday, heeding calls in recent days by opposition leaders to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters who recently toppled their own regimes.
Iranian demonstrators clash with Iranian riot-police during a demonstration in Tehran. The opposition reported that tear gas had been fired near Tehran's University and Azadi Square.
.Cellphone and text-messaging service was down along the protest routes, Iranians reported. Security forces clashed with protesters in several areas in Tehran, Isfahan and other cities, dispersing crowds with tear gas and beating them, according to witnesses.
Police used tear gas against protesters in central Tehran's Enghelab Square and in Imam Hussein Square, as well as in other nearby main streets, the Associated Press reported, adding that demonstrators responded by setting garbage cans on fire. Security forces on motorcycles could also be seen chasing protesters through the streets, the AP reported eyewitnesses as saying.
Activists said large crowds were marching in cities including Isfahan, Najaf Abad and Mashad. Several websites for the opposition, used to relay information about the protest, were no longer operating late Monday, but Reuters reported that one said dozens of demonstrators were arrested at the Tehran rally.
WSJ's Charles Levinson and Jerry Seib report on how public protests in Egypt have sparked protests throughout the Middle East, namely Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Iran.
.The protests coincided with a visit to Iran by Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Monday.
At a news conference with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Gul briefly addressed the unrest sweeping the Mideast, saying regional leaders must listen to the demands of their public. He didn't specifically mention Iran.
Iranian opposition leaders have capitalized on the regional momentum caused by recent Arab unrest to reinvigorate their own antiregime protests.
After June 2009 presidential elections, which opposition leaders said were rigged in Mr. Ahmadinejad's favor, protesters swarmed Iran in the hundreds of thousands, and they kept up large protests through early 2010. Iranian authorities said the polls accurately reflected the will of the people.
As Arab revolts have recently toppled regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, Iranian opposition leaders resumed calls to take to the streets.
An Egyptian police officer, center, confronted anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo Monday.
About 4,000 people gathered in Azadi Square, in central Tehran, and more were streaming in, with dozens of police on motorbikes circling the square, according to eyewitnesses, opposition websites and Internet posts.
Witnesses said a few thousand protesters had also gathered at Imam Hussein Square, sitting on the ground and breaking out in chants when police tried to disperse them.
Witnesses said crowds were swelling in central Tehran, with people marching silently in large numbers toward Azadi Square.
Shops and restaurants along the route had been shut down, and security forces surrounded the campus of Tehran University, preventing students from entering.
Thousands of student activists also gathered at the campus of Sharif University, preparing to march to the square.
By midafternoon, uniformed security forces had lined many Tehran streets, diverting traffic and blocking all access—on foot and by car—to Azadi Square, according to witnesses. Metro stations near the protest route been closed.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi were placed under house arrest early Monday, with communication lines to their homes and mobile phones cut off, according to opposition websites.
Police cars blocked the entry to their streets and, at one point, prevented Mr. Mousavi's wife from leaving her house.
Since soon after contested presidential elections in June 2009, Iranian authorities have all but banned independent reporting of antiregime gatherings, making accurate estimates of crowd size difficult.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered a blistering critique of the Iranian government Monday, saying its actions after the riots in Egypt were an "indictment of the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime."
.Leaders of those protests have called for people to return to the streets in the wake of the resignation Friday night of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.
The Iranian protests of 2009 and 2010, which swelled on occasion to hundreds of thousands in the days and weeks following the elections, faded early last year, amid repeated, heavy-handed responses from the government.
On Sunday, Iran's most visible opposition leaders, Messrs. Mousavi and Karoubi, issued a statement upholding the call for a show of force in the street, despite threats from the government that it would crack down again.
On Sunday night, for the first time in months, Tehran rocked again to the chants from residents on rooftops across the capital of "God is Great," and "Death to the dictator," according to witnesses and videos posted on the Internet. The chants, common during the Iranian revolution more than 30 years ago, were repurposed during the height of the antiregime protests in 2009 and 2010.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at
farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com