IRAN: Tens of thousands of Iranians have turned out to attend the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a senior cleric who was critical of the Iranian government, according to reports on an Iranian opposition website.
Montazeri's funeral in the holy city of Qom got under way on Monday, with some analysts saying it could become a catalyst for fresh opposition protests.
"People and friends are coming to express their condolences," Naser Montazeri, the cleric's grandson, said from Qom.
The opposition Kalme website reported that a bus carrying opposition supporters to Qom was stopped and some of those on board arrested.
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both opposition leaders who were defeated in June's disputed presidential poll, had earlier called for a national day of mourning.
"We invite all saddened religious people mourning the death of this pride of the Shia world to take part in the funeral of this legend of endeavour, jurisprudence and spirituality," Mousavi and Karroubi said in a joint statement published on the Kalme website.
Mousavi later arrived in Qom to attend the funeral, at which Montazeri wil be buried in the shrine of Masoumeh, a revered Shia figure.
Media restricted
Foreign media have been banned from covering the funeral ceremony.
In the wake of the street protests that followed the election dispute, Montazeri was referred to as the spiritual leader of the opposition.
In August, Montazeri described the clerical establishment as a "dictatorship", saying that the authorities' handling of street unrest after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, "could lead to the fall of the regime".
He was an architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution but fell out with the Iranian leadership in the 1980s.
Montazeri passed away on Sunday in Qom after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Videos posted on the internet prior to the funeral appeared to show hundreds of Montazeri's supporters taking to the streets of Najafabad, his birth town, to mourn his death.
'A humble man'
Baqer Moin, an Iranian journalist and author, told Al Jazeera that Montazeri's absence would be "greatly felt across the country", among people on both sides of the political divide.
"He was the most heavyweight among them [the reformists]. He had great popularity because he was a humble man, he was a simple man ... and above all he was very courageous," Moin said.
"He didn't fear expressing his views, critical of the current supreme leader or the policies of the government."
Ghanbar Naderi, a journalist for the Iran Daily newspaper, told Al Jazeera: "This is huge blow to the reformist camp, because he is unreplaceable and nobody is happy to hear about his sad demise.
"He used to say that religion should be separated from politics, because in this way, we can keep the integrity of religion intact."
But Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera in August that Montazeri said "the same thing for around 25 years".
"After his inner circle was discovered to be linked to Mujahidin terrorists based in Iraq, he was isolated by the reformists," he said.
"He is not a major player and has always been very critical," Marandi said.
Kingdom increases spending on education and health
