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British embassy in Tehran faces public fury
13/08/2004
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A crowd of demonstrators in the Iranian capital city of Tehran gathered in front of the British embassy Friday in protest at the recent profanation of the holy Shiite sites in Iraq.
The gathering was staged after a massive rally by Tehrani residents after the Friday prayers ceremony for the same theme.
The protestors headed for the British embassy amid tight security measures. All the streets and alleys leading to the British embassy were closed by special security forces. The routes to the embassy were blocked with commuter buses and bar barricades. No one was allowed to cross the roads to the main gate.
A group of protestors tried to get to the main gate, who were swiftly prevented by the security guards. They were calling on the guards to let them pass, chanting slogans in urging for the shutdown of the British embassy in Tehran.
However, protestors won a sit-in in front of the eastern gate of the embassy. They were holding an array of placards and chanting a raft of slogans in condemnation of the sacrilegious performance of the US troops in the holy Shiite city of Najaf in the neighbouring Iraq during the recent days.
Stones and rotten tomatoes were hurled at the security guard and at the embassy too and a US flag was burnt, but no arrests took place.
The protestors warned over the US raids to the holy Najaf in Iraq, the home to the shrine of Imam Ali (AS), who in Shiite Islam teachings is the first successor to Islam's prophet.
US planes have pounded the Iraqi city of Najaf and other cities in Iraq for the last several days. The raids have left over hundreds of people dead and many more injured, many of whom women and children.
Recent clashes in the city of Najaf have so far left 165 Iraqis killed and 600 wounded, Iraq`s Ministry of Health
reported in a statement on Friday.
Tehran rallies came in response to calls by government officials as well as non-governmental organizations in a show of protest and fury against US atrocities and a wholehearted sympathy with the Iraqi people.
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