Pro-government crowd threatens Ayatollah Montazeri's home

Ayatollah Montazeri's tomb

Pro-government forces have indicated that they will demonstrate in Qom against the mourners of Ayatollah Montazeri, the senior reformist cleric who passed away on Sunday, and there is grave concern that his residence will be attacked again.

Last night, following the funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri which saw hundreds of thousands of mourners in Qom, pro-government forces in plainclothes swarmed his residence breaking windows and tearing his pictures and the black mourning banners.

Yesterday's attack of Ayatollah Montazeri's home

They also attacked the home of Ayatollah Montazeri’s son close by.

The office of another leading reformist Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Sanei was also attacked last night. Ayatollah Sanei was also impeded from attending Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral yesterday morning. The attack on Ayatollah Sanei was connected with the fact that opposition leaders, MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi who arrived in Qom the day before to attend the ceremonies, stayed at Ayatollah Sanei’s residence.

Security forces did not attempt to stop Ayatollah Sanei’s attackers, according to eyewitnesses.

MirHosein Mousavi’s was attacked on his way back from Qom by a group of bikers in plainclothes and the opposition leader received some minor injuries

The pro-government forces are supposed to gather at 3:30 p.m. in front of Ayatollah Khomeini’s residence which is about one kilometre from Ayatollah Montazeri’s home.

Fars maintains that Ayatollah Montazeri’s mourners had chanted slogans against the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against the system; therefore the “honourable and revolutionary” people of Qom are going to condemn their act.

While Ayatollah Montazeri’s residence was surrounded by security forces during the ceremony and the event was interrupted by the swarming of plainclothes attackers who vandalized the building, Ayatollah Sanei maintained that the funeral was unique and unprecedented in the history of the funerals held in Qom, both in terms of the number of people who attended and in terms of the caliber of the mourners.

A group of two thousand government supporters attacked Ayatollah Montazeri’s commemoration ceremony at Azam Mosque yesterday. To avoid any harm coming to mourners, the family has cancelled the customary third day commemoration events.

Commemoration service at Ayatollah Zanjani's

Despite government threats against mourners, Ayatollah Bayat Zanjani held a commemoration ceremony for the deceased leading cleric this morning. Ayatollah Taheri in Esfahan will also hold a commemoration service for Ayatollah Montazeri tomorrow.