Thousands of Tehran residents gathered across the national state-run radio and television headquarters and shouted slogans against Ezatolah Zarghami, the head of the organization, Ahmadinejad and ayatollah Khamenei, amid the strong presence of armed officers.
This gathering emerged after a call to mourn Mohsen Ruhol-Amini who died in Evin prison last week. His tortured body was handed over to his father three days ago.
Initially, the plan was to hold a memorial for Ruhol-Amini in Tehran’s Balal mosque situated adjacent to the national radio and television headquarters in Tehran. But the gathering was cancelled because of pressure applied to the family members of the deceased.
News sources reported that an emergency situation was created because of the gathering of the mourners, and the personnel of the station were sent home earlier than usual.
This mourning gathering was announced despite the absence of permits by officials to hold mourning gatherings at any mosque for individuals who had been killed in the recent anti government protests around the country.
In response to the announcement to hold a mourning ceremony for Ruhollah-Amini, security agents began taking positions at 3pm at the Vali Asr Avenue, leading up to the mosque. Hours later, it appeared that there were thousands of agents in and around the radio-TV station.
But despite the cancellation of the gathering, which was announced just a few hours before the planned event, many people still came and assembled in front of the radio-television building. There, they saw a banner that read, “The morning ceremony for Mohsen Ruhollah-Amini has been postponed to a later date as a measure to avoid its misuse by some opportunist groups.”
But people stayed despite the banner and continued their protests and chants. The police on the other hand used loudspeakers to ask people to break up and leave the scene. Since nobody listened, they fired some shots in the air, which did not produce the result they desired. Tens of thousands of people had come to the scene and so they continued their protests. Apparently, if the event had not been cancelled, the mosque and the areas around the radio-TV station would not have been able to handle the large crowd.
Because of the growing crowds, new security forces were brought into the area to prevent the public from possibly entering the radio-TV grounds. From 6pm onwards, Basiji groups began to be brought in by mini-buses, pickup trucks, motorcycles and other Passdaran Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) marked vehicles.
Inside the radio-TV compound there were tens of  IRGC’s armored carriers along with thousands of armed men. Because of the crowds and the security forces, Vali Asr avenue leading up to the mosque and the radio-TV station was blocked off from 4pm onwards. And while agents worked to disperse the public, the crowds grew in size and continued their peaceful protests until 8pm, when they gradually began to disperse and leave before dark so security agents would not find it convenient to attack them.
The protestors agreed to gather on August 5th, the day Ahmadinejad’s presidency is planned to be officially endorsed by the Majlis, to display their objections and rejection of his presidential victory and the announced June 12 election results.
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