(CNN) — A demonstration erupted Sunday outside an Iranian detention center, where 33 members of a women’s group were being held following their arrest during a peaceful protest in a Tehran park a day before, a human rights organization reported.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, citing an eyewitness account, said more than 100 police and plainclothes officers broke up a gathering of the Mourning Mothers in Laleh Park on Saturday afternoon. The group, formed by women whose children have been killed in recent anti-government protests, gathers every weekend at the park to call attention to the deaths.
“They would not allow anyone to even sit on the benches or congregate,” the organization quoted the unidentified witness as saying. “After about 70 mothers entered the park, security forces engaged them and started chasing them, grabbing them, and forcing them into police vans. They used a lot of violence and insults in the process.”
