US News

Protesters’ angry cries across Arab world

Following anti-government protests in Egypt and Tunisia, emboldened citizens of other nations in the Mideast and North Africa are openly calling for democratic changes. Here’s a rundown:

IRAN

Thousands of Iranian hard-liners clashed with students yesterday at the funeral of a slain protester — whom the government tried to portray as the victim of “terrorists” — in just one development in the upheaval touching the Muslim world.

The family of the tragic student, Saane Zhaleh, 26, said he was against the government and was murdered by security forces at a protest Monday.

“They have killed him and now they want to hijack his dead body and exploit his funeral for their own purposes,” a relative told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“His family is totally devastated and inundated in sorrow.”

Yesterday’s violence flared at Tehran University, which Zhaleh attended.

Members of the Basij militia and government supporters carried his coffin, draped in the Iranian flag, through the streets.

During the procession, government loyalists attacked protesters, many of whom were arrested, according to the opposition Web site Kalema. It was unclear how many were injured.

A senior official in the Iranian judiciary said it was certain that two opposition leaders will be tried for sedition over Monday’s protests.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were placed under house arrest last week.

Meanwhile, Israel charged that Iran is brazenly trying to exploit the Egyptian upheaval by sending two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

“This is a provocation that proves that Iranian audacity and insolence are increasing,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

The State Department confirmed the presence of two Iranian ships in the Red Sea. “What their intention is, what their destination is, I can’t say,” spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

Canal officials appeared to be caught off-guard, since foreign countries usually give 48 hours notice before trying to send naval vessels through the crucial waterway.

“For warships to pass through the canal, approval from the ministry of defense and the ministry of foreign affairs is needed and this applies to all warships owned by any country,” a canal official said.

Iran didn’t get permission.

LIBYA

The North African nation was hit with its biggest Egypt-inspired protests.

Two died in clashes in Beyida.

And when marchers set fire to security headquarters in Benghazi and a police station in Zentan, at least 38 people were reported injured when the riot police of Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy stormed in.

Protesters, outraged over the arrests of human-rights advocates, chanted, “Moammar is the enemy of Allah!” and “Down, down to corruption and to the corrupt” as they set cars ablaze, witnesses said.

YEMEN

Police killed two protesters — one of them shot in the back — during the fourth day of demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, doctors said.

Yemen’s news agency said Saleh called King Hadad of Bahrain to commiserate and blame the reformist fervor on people “with foreign agendas.”

BAHRAIN

Thousands of protesters staged a sit-in in the central square of the capital, Manama, in an imitation of Egyptian activists who occupied Cairo’s Tahrir Square two weeks ago. But cops today moved in to bust up the demonstration, killing two. Two others died during earlier protests.

On Tuesday, King Hamad went on national TV offering to investigate the violence and vowing to loosen state controls on the Internet and the media.

ALGERIA

Prime minister Ahmed Ouyahia said he and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika would lift the 19-year-old state of emergency, which had been used to muzzle the political opposition by banning marches.

Sporadic demonstrations and strikes have hit the nation in recent weeks. And Ouyahia said Algeria “cannot ignore events taking place in Arab and Islamic countries.”

MOROCCO

Protesters are using Facebook to spread word of a rally planned for Sunday to demand greater political and economic reforms.

King Mohammed had his reputation damaged by WikiLeaks disclosures about palace corruption — and he answered critics by nearly doubling state subsidies to keep commodity prices down.

* Meanwhile, CIA Director Leon Panetta said yesterday his agency is closely watching the Muslim Brotherhood and the quickly changing political landscape in Egypt.

“It is clear that within the Muslim Brotherhood there are extremist elements that we have to pay attention to and that’s something we watch very closely to make sure that they are not able to exert their influence on the directions of governments in that region,” he told the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the brotherhood, which does not favor Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, represents only one voice in the country’s new political mix.