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Iran police clash with mourners

Neda Agha-Soltan

Iranian opposition leaders have vowed to attend ceremonies to honour those killed in the violence following the country’s disputed election result.

Authorities have refused permission for a ceremony traditionally held 40 days after a person’s death.

Among those who died on 20 June was Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman whose death was filmed on a mobile phone.

The mother of Ms Agha Soltan – who became a symbol of Iran’s protests – is expected to take part in the memorial.

One of 10 protesters who died that day, 27-year-old Agha Soltan was shot to death as she watched protests from the sidelines of the demonstrations.

Graveside ceremony

When footage of her death was posted on a video-sharing website, she became a symbol for the country’s opposition movement.

The BBC’s Jon Leyne says that Shia Muslims traditionally mark 40 days after a death in a ceremony called the Arbayeen.

Bowing to pressure about the treatment of opposition detainees, some of whom are reported to have died in prison, Iranian authorities have announced that many are going to be released.

Twenty who are charged with more serious offences – including bombings and attacking security forces – are expected to be put on trial next week.

There has been growing outrage, even amongst government supporters, about the treatment of opposition detainees, some of whom have died in prison.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she deplored the way the Iranian government was treating those it had imprisoned after the violence and urged authorities to release political detainees.


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Baghdad church bombing kills four

Security forces outside one of the bombed churches in Baghdad

A car bomb outside a church in eastern Baghdad has killed four people and injured 21, Iraqi police say.

The bomb went off on Sunday evening and could be heard around the city.

The bombing came after three other churches were targeted by smaller bombs, injuring seven people but killing none, reports said.

There are some 750,000 people in Iraq’s Christian community. Christian targets have been attacked in the past, but are spared much of Iraq’s deadly violence.

They have been targeted in some areas of the country, mainly in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul.

However, most of the violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature and targets either Sunni or Shia Muslims.

The last bomb of the day went off near a church on Palestine Street, the Reuters news agency said.

Sunday’s earlier bombs were hidden in cardboard boxes, the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Baghdad. One bomb caused some injuries but no-one was killed, and two of the bombs hurt no-one.

The attacks came on the day a senior general in Iraq’s military said insurgent attacks could be expected to continue for several more years.

Levels of violence have dipped sharply in recent years, but the remarks suggested Iraqi leaders are expecting continued sporadic attacks by militant cells after the US pulls out combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011. </p


This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.