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Videos: Watch CNN's coverage of clashes in Iran

  • Story Highlights
  • Videos, pictures offer glimpses inside Iran
  • Images show police rushing protesters
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TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian police clad in riot gear dispersed a crowd of demonstrators at the University of Shiraz Saturday by beating them with batons, a video uploaded to Facebook showed.

• Initially, the scene appeared peaceful: Throngs lined the streets and one man fervently waved a green flag -- the color adopted by opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi, whose supporters have taken to the streets to protest what they consider fraudulent results of the June 12 presidential election.

Suddenly, baton-wielding police rushed the protesters. Men and screaming women fled and some bore the brunt of the baton, the video showed.

The clash at the university, in the southern city of Shiraz, shows that demonstrations have spread beyond the capital.

CNN cannot independently confirm the veracity of this or other reports because the Iranian government expelled international media following reports of the initial post-election protests. Now, images uploaded to social networking sites, video-sharing sites and sent to CNN from people in the midst of the unrest provide the best look at a nation facing an intense political upheaval.

• Images of a bus on fire, a motorcycle torched, people hurling rocks and streets overspilling with thousands of shouting protesters emerged Saturday.

• Police flung canisters of tear gas into the streets to daze and scare off protesters, according to one video aired by government-backed Iranian state television. But the demonstrators persisted, looking toward the police, shouting and throwing their hands in the air.

• In another video, it appeared that some protesters attacked an officer. A woman unsuccessfully tried to protect him by shielding him with her body from the kicks and slaps of angry protesters.

• Elsewhere in Iran, men carried a limp and bloody man through the streets. Less than a minute earlier, what sounded like gunshots were heard in the video posted to YouTube.

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• At other demonstration sites, police used water to repress the election backlash that has roiled the country for more than a week, state-run Press TV reported.

Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election, according to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei earlier warned that organizers would be held responsible for protests that led to bloodshed.

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