Cleric Underlines Iran's Full Support for Regional Uprisings

"Our great nation cannot ignore oppressions against the Muslim nations of the region by their tyrannical rulers and with the US green light," Khatami said addressing a large and fervent congregation of worshippers on Tehran University Campus here on Friday.

"Saudi rulers are oppressing their own people and support dictators and have suppressed nations of the region. Hence, our religion and humanness requires us to adopt a stance and side with those who have a right.

"The nation of this country (Saudi Arabia) have a right to vote and they are asking for nothing but their rights."

"I tell these nations in a very clear and straightforward manner that although we, as required by the international rules, cannot come and be present in there, we extend our full spiritual support for you and we wish you victory," the Friday Prayers leader said.

His remarks came after the Saudi police cracked down on a Shiite popular uprising in an area around the city of al-Qatif earlier this week, injuring several people seriously.

Tension in the village boiled over Monday as Saudi police arrested two men, both in their 70s, in a bid to force their fugitive sons, accused of taking part in Shiite-led protests, to surrender, according to a Shiite activist.

Unrests escalated after the Kingdom's assistant minister of defense and aviation Prince Khalid bin Sultan told his troops located in the Qatif area they should be ready for all "possibilities".

Civilians who witnessed the clashes insist the Saudi state is brutally suppressing the protest.

"The situation is calm now in the village" of Al-Awamiya in Eastern Saudi Arabia, said Human Rights First Society head Ibrahim al-Mughaiteeb, after 14 people were injured in the police clampdown.

At a mosque in the village late on Tuesday, senior cleric Sheikh Nimr Nimr, said
Saudi "authorities depend on bullets ... and killing and imprisonment. We must depend on the roar of the word, on the words of justice," Nimr said following two days of Saudi clampdown on Shiite protesters.

A video posted on YouTube showed demonstrators chanting "Down with Mohammed bin Fahd," the governor of the Eastern Province and son of Saudi Arabia's former ruler, the late King Fahd.

Saudi Arabia first witnessed popular uprisings after it sent troops to the neighboring Bahrain to suppress the peaceful protestors in the country.