Police clamp down on vigil, arrest six Iranians students

By Syed Jaymal Zahii, The Malaysian Insider

Six Iranian students were arrested by the Dang Wangi police last night for attending a peaceful candlelight vigil held at a park outside the Suria KLCC shopping mall here.

The vigil, organised and attended by some 100 Malaysian-based Iranian students, was for the victims of the Iranian government crackdown on opposition supporters in recent weeks which left many dead.

It is learnt that the six tried to plead with the police to allow them to peacefully continue with the vigil but were nabbed and brought to the Dang Wangi police headquarters where they were detained for a few hours before being set free.

Last night’s vigil was among the many peaceful protests held by Iranian students in the country in what appears to be a futile bid to urge the international community to exert pressure on Tehran.

Iran is currently engulfed in a political upheaval following mass street protests led by former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi who lost to incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election.

The mass scale demonstrations, the first since the 1979 revolution that ousted the US-backed Shah, are held to protest the election outcome which Mousavi and his supporters claim was rigged.