Rare popular protest vented at Rafsanjani funeral in Tehran
Up to 2.5 million people attended the funeral of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the founding fathers of the Islamic regime, who later switched to support of the opposition. The funeral turned into a rare protest against the regime, with such slogans as “Free political prisoners,” “Dictator, dictator, respect only comes from God.” There were calls to release from six years of house arrest the opposition Green Movement founders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who led the demonstration that rocked Iran in 2009 after a rigged election, and which peaked with a Friday sermon by Rafsanjani lambasting regime repression..