IRAN: A bird’s-eye view of Wednesday’s clash in downtown Tehran

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An extraordinary video has surfaced purporting to show the encounter between stone-wielding demonstrators and Iranian police and pro-government vigilantes Wednesday in downtown Tehran’s Baharestan Square.

The grainy 10-minute video, which could not be independently verified, shows a bird’s-eye view of the violent encounter, in which angry demonstrators sometimes chase the club-wielding police away as they chanted indecipherable slogans.

The street clashes unfolded within a stone’s throw of parliament, where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was delivering a speech to lawmakers. The action begins a couple of minutes into the tape, as uniformed men swarm protesters, who fight back.

At one point, a man comments in Persian, ‘The tear gas is coming all the way up here.’

-- Borzou Daragahi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Video: Clash in Baharestan Square.