Thousands in Tehran Join in Anti-Khomeini Protests

Thousands of people, many with bouquets of flowers in their cars, snarled traffic in Tehran on Friday after a call by exiled former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar for anti-government protests.

Witnesses said there was almost a carnival atmosphere as drivers hit their horns and clogged up main thoroughfares in central and north Tehran, crawling in low gear and forming long lines. Traffic is usually light on Friday mornings.

There were no slogans or placards visible and no sign of violent protests. But residents said there appeared little doubt that thousands of people had responded to Bakhtiar’s call.

In clandestine Farsi- (Persian) language radio broadcasts earlier this week, Bakhtiar, the last prime minister under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, called for protests Friday against the clergy-dominated Iranian leadership and against the lengthy war with Iraq.

Bakhtiar, who lives in Paris, called for peaceful demonstrations through a clandestine radio station inside Iran, according to a spokeswoman for his so-called National Movement of the Iranian Resistance in the French capital. The movement also reported demonstrations in eight provincial towns.

In a statement, Bakhtiar said, “Today the Iranian people have made it clear that they will no longer tolerate Khomeini’s regime or his senseless war and have sent an absolutely clear and unmistakable signal. . . .” The reference was to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader.

In Paris, another opposition group, the Moujahedeen, said Friday that thousands of people had demonstrated in Iranian cities in the last few days in support of a Moujahedeen-organized “campaign for peace.”

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency called the demonstrations “childish displays” by a few hundred supporters of the shah “to show their like of corrupt and unrestrained monarchial ways.”

Members of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, stationed on Tehran streets, appeared nervous at the demonstration progressed, residents said. They said the situation was orderly, but at least 20 arrests reportedly were made.

Occupants of some cars smiled to each other and exchanged friendly greetings, a situation in stark contrast to the usual nervous atmosphere in the capital’s weekday traffic jams.

Drivers stayed in their cars, apparently to avoid what would have undoubtedly have been an instant crackdown by the Revolutionary Guards, diplomats said.

Those out in their cars appeared to be from Tehran’s middle class, rather than the poorer people from the southern suburbs where Khomeini and the government have their strongest support, witnesses said.