Hard-line vigilantes clashed with mourners at the funeral of Iran's top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in the city of Qom on Monday, opposition websites reported.
"The present crowd in the procession has been estimated at hundreds of thousands of people and they were also shouting slogans in his support, and also in support of (opposition leader) Mirhossein Mousavi," Jaras website reported.
The report could not be independently verified as foreign media have been banned from travelling to Qom for the event.
The present crowd in the procession has been estimated at hundreds of thousands of people and they were also shouting slogans in his support, and also in support of Mirhossein Mousavi
Kaleme also reported Mousavi has arrived in the holy city of Qom earlier to take part in the funeral but that Iranian security forces stopped a bus carrying opposition supporters on their way to the funeral.
Mousavi and another opposition leader urged their supporters on Sunday to attend the funeral and announced a day of national mourning for Montazeri, the same reformist website reported earlier.
The official IRNA news agency, in its first report on the funeral procession, said mourners carrying the coffin "calmly" entered Qom's main religious shrine where prayers would be held. It did not give any details on the size of the crowd.
Fars, a semi-official news agency, later said Montazeri had been buried at the shrine.
Hard-line and pro-government "Ansar Hezbollah groups entered the crowd and wanted to derail the slogans and disrupt the ceremony. They went away after clashing with some people," another reformist website said.
The authorities have slowed Internet connections down to a crawl, as has been the case whenever opposition demonstrations are anticipated.
A spiritual leader
Ansar Hezbollah groups entered the crowd and wanted to derail the slogans and disrupt the ceremony. They went away after clashing with some people
Montazeri was an inspiration and spiritual leader to Iran reformists and human rights activists, who died aged 87 on Saturday.
The cleric, who was widely considered as the highest living authority of Shiite Islam in Iran, was being buried in the shrine of Masoumeh, a revered Shiite figure, in Qom.
Montazeri was named in the 1980s to succeed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran's top authority, but fell out with him over the mass execution of prisoners.
The grand Ayatollah was among the government's harshest critics in a clerical establishment where splits have widened during the turmoil triggered by June 12 vote.
The pro-reform opposition says the poll was rigged to secure hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.
The authorities have denied the charge and portrayed the huge opposition protests after the election, which were quelled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and Islamic militiamen, as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the clerical leadership.
In August, Montazeri said on his Web site that the authorities' handling of street unrest following the election "could lead to the fall of the regime" and he denounced the clerical leadership as a dictatorship.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini after his death in 1989, expressed his condolences, ISNA news agency reported.
Alluding to Montazeri's dispute with Khomeini, Khamenei said he asked God to forgive Montazeri over a "difficult and critical test" that he faced towards the end of Khomeini's life. Khamenei made clear his opinion was that Montazeri failed the test.
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