DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Thousands of Iranians disputing the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched at an unauthorized rally Sunday, defying truncheon-wielding security forces and dire threats by Iranian leaders.
Meanwhile, European leaders' hackles were raised by the arrest a day earlier of eight British Embassy staffers in Tehran, a move that has sharpened Iran's confrontation with the West over the disputed election and its violent aftermath. Several of the staffers, all Iranian nationals, were quickly released.
Supporters of Ahmadinejad's opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, gathered at a mosque in northeast Tehran during an annual commemoration for 72 Iranian politicians killed in a bombing 28 years ago.
Videos on YouTube purported to show demonstrators with hands in the air in front of the Ghoba mosque, chanting boisterously in support of Mousavi.
According to a witness who has previously provided accurate information to The Times, numerous opposition figures attended the rally, including presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi; Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard; and both the daughter and wife of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a Mousavi supporter.
The witness said pro-government Basiji militiamen and plainclothes security officials on motorcycles surrounded the rally and that Mousavi himself addressed the gathering by cellphone, which was attached to a megaphone, but the witness could not hear what he said.
Protesters flashed victory signs as they filled the mosque and surrounding side streets. A female protester, covered completely by a black chador, taunted some of the police.
"Who are you?" she demanded, according to the witness. "Are you Muslims?"
Dumbfounded security officials stood and watched, the witness said.
Iran accused the local British Embassy staff members of "playing major parts" in the recent unrest over the election, which many Iranians and independent experts consider fraudulent, according to a report by Fars, a pro-Ahmadinejad news agency.
All eight embassy employees arrested were members of the mission's political section, a source said. Some were released after preliminary investigations, but some will remain in custody, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
"The British Embassy played a crucial role in the recent unrest both through its local staff and via media," the news agency quoted the minister of intelligence and security, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, as saying Sunday.
