Iran Nobel winner gets hero's welcome/Saudi police crush protest

The UK's BBC News reports that:

Thousands of people have greeted Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi in extraordinary scenes at Tehran's city airport on her return to the Iranian capital. Human rights groups and non-governmental organisations, swelled by crowds of local people, gathered at the city airport to give her a hero's welcome. The human rights activist, who has already used her elevated profile to urge the Iranian Government to allow greater freedom of speech, called for political prisoners to be released as she stepped off the plane.

The area surrounding Tehran's Mehrabad airport was brought to a standstill by traffic jams. Many people simply abandoned their cars and walked the rest of the way, singing pre-revolutionary Iranian nationalist songs and chanting slogans calling for the release of political prisoners. However, the crowd gave a hostile reception to a number of reformist deputies who turned up to welcome Mrs Ebadi. They said the deputies had betrayed the hopes of those who had elected them.

Mrs Ebadi, 56, was said to be visibly emotional as she returned from a short trip to France, where she heard news of her award on Friday. It really was an extraordinary occasion, probably far beyond what the organisers had imagined would happen, says the BBC's Tehran correspondent Jim Muir.

"I hope that all political prisoners will be freed," said Mrs Ebadi. "This prize is not only for me, but for all those in favour of peace, democracy, human rights and legality. The world recognises the fight of Muslim women, and this is my political message."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3192024.stm



Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia police have clashed with human rights protesters:

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Police in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have broken up a rare demonstration which was calling for political reform. The protest took place close to where the Saudi Government was hosting its first human rights conference. Reports said police fired shots into the air to disperse a crowd of a few hundred people, who were led by bearded men chanting "God is great". A number of arrests were made after what eyewitnesses describe as minor scuffles with the police.

It is not clear what the aim of the rally was, but it came after an exiled Saudi opposition group - the UK-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) - had said it planned a sit-in against the detention of government opponents. The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) later described the protest as "a rally by a number of individuals" which disrupted traffic in a busy district of Riyadh.

Opposition of any kind is banned in the conservative kingdom, and experts say the incident is deeply embarrassing for the Saudi Government.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3191996.stm