Iran Poll results prompt Iran protests (excerpts)

Source: Al Jazeera


Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Tehran to protest the outcome of the country's elections, the biggest unrest since the country's 1979 revolution.

Riot police were deployed in the capital after supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated reformist candidate, took to the streets on Saturday.

Up to 3,000 Mousavi supporters took part in the protests after Mousavi was defeated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president.

Al Jazeera's Teymoor Nabili, reporting from Tehran, said major streets in the north of the capital had come to a standstill.

"Coming up the street there were running battles happening between riot police and students and there were refuse bins alight in the middle of the road," he said.

"I saw riot police hitting student's with sticks. I saw students - or young people - throwing stones at the riot police, trying to knock them off their motorcycles.

"But you didn't get a sense that there was any kind of organised movement in this."