TEHRAN - Iranian authorities have ordered the release of over 300 people arrested during deadly clashes between security forces and ethnic Arabs in Khuzestan province last week, the defence minister said Tuesday.
"An order has been given to release all the people arrested in the course of the recent troubles," the student news agency ISNA quoted Admiral Ali Shamkhani, himself an Arab from Khuzestan, as saying.
The agency said that Shamkhani travelled to the province on Monday evening on a goodwill mission to meet Arab leaders of the province, which borders Iraq.
He said that 310 people had been arrested and "three or four" killed during the unrest which broke out on Friday. Previous official figures had spoken of three dead and 200 people arrested.
Iranians of Arab descent form the majority in the oil-rich province's main city of Ahvaz but just three percent of Iran's population as a whole.
04/19/2005 12:40 GMT