Crowds run amok in Iran’s second city

Press, 21 February 1978, Page 9

Crowds run amok in Iran’s second city

NZPA-Reuter Teheran I Rampaging crowds, esti- ' mated to number thousands, ihave overwhelmed policemen • and virtually ransacked Tabriz, Iran’s second city, in i riots that have left, six killed [and 125 injured, including 11 policemen. The rioters, led, according to official reports, by Marxist Muslim elements, set off 135 fires across the city. 650 km south of Teheran, and attacked 73 banks, eight cinemas, four hotels, and the ! technological institute. I Travellers returning from Tabriz to Teheran have described the situation as chaotic and even insurrectional, recalling violent demonstrations at the holy city of Qom, south of Teheran, six weeks ago during which six persons were killed, accord-

iing to official reports, and i as many as 60. by Opposition organisations. The Associated Press reports that two youths have been seriously wounded in separate armed assaults in nearby Turkey. At least a dozen bomb explosions were reported in week-end violence across the country. A high-school student, Doga Cakmak, suffered critical gunshot wounds when two armed brothers attacked him on a lonely street in the Turkish capital of Ankara, according to the police the attackers were arrested. In Izmir, a resort town on the Aegean shore, the head of a pro-Moscow student association survived a hail of pistol fire, but he was later staged several times by unknown hooligans, according to the police.

Tarik Demirel was listed asi in a critical condition at an Izmir hospital. Both assassination attempts are believed by the police to have been politi-cally-motivated.

Graver charges

The Soviet authorities, apparently unmoved by Western 'appeals, have disclosed that they are pressing ;more serious criminal Charges against the detained dissident leader, Yuri Orlov. 1 Friends say his wife, Irina, i has been summoned to the! Lubyanka prison, headquarters of the K.G.B. secret’ police, and told that Dr Orlov, who is 52, now faces charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. He could be sentenced to seven i years in a labour camp. —i Moscow.