Iran marks '9-Day Epic' anniversary

Iranians throughout the country attended ceremonies to mark the anniversary of Dec 30, known as the 9-Day Epic.

People across Iran mark the Dec 30 anniversary each year as a day which restored tranquillity to the nation after months of political wrangling and unrest.

On Dec 30, 2009, millions of people took to the streets in Tehran and several other major cities and condemned what they called the foreign-orchestrated unrest which erupted in the wake of the 2009 presidential election.

The people took to the streets of Tehran in 2009 as the government intensified its crackdown on the opposition after it claimed that the election results were rigged.

A section of people dressed in black and wearing green wristbands and headbands were showing their support for the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Crowds gathered in Haft-e-Tir square and streets around it. Most of the protesters were silent and made victory signs while Iran called the unrest foreign-orchestrated, according to reports.

Soon after the unrest, making his first appearance since the election, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsed elected president Ahmadinejad's victory, insisting the margin of victory --some 11 million votes-- was too large to have been manipulated.

Khamenei expressed his support for Ahmadinejad and called for an end to the protests, which he accused foreign powers including Britain, israel and the US of helping foment.

Following his intervention the protests began to die out.

Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, two of the candidates who lost in the 2009 election, were put under house arrest on charges of provoking people and harming national security by spreading the idea that the election results were rigged. They were later released.

Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani Monday described the Dec 30 demonstration as a popular uprising which "ended the sedition movement in 2009".

The rally was also in protest against incidents that took place days earlier in which a group of demonstrators in Tehran insulted the sensibilities of the Iranian people on the day of Ashura which marks the death anniversary of Imam Hussein.