Iran Orders Bahrain-bound Boats to Return Home

Iran on Monday ordered the return home of two boats carrying Iranian "activists" to Bahrain to express solidarity with Shiite-led protests there, the English-language Press TV said.

The channel's reporter traveling with the activists said in a live broadcast that the boats had been ordered to return and activists were throwing in the water letters they were carrying as "moral support" to Bahraini Shiites.

Earlier Monday, the network showed live footage of the boats setting sail for international waters from the port of Dayyer in the southern province of Bushehr.

The 120 "activists" featured students, scholars and physicians as well as women and children who hoped to be cleared to enter the Sunni-ruled Gulf state, it said quoting the activists.

Press TV had said the boats would return to Iran should they be denied entry.

One of the organizers of the trip, Mehdi Eqrarian, told Fars news agency that no "armed personnel" were on board the boats.

The activists were only carrying the Iranian people's "moral support" in the form of 5,000 letters to show solidarity with the silenced Shiite-led uprisings in Bahrain, Eqrarian said.

Relations between Iran and Gulf monarchies, including Manama, greatly deteriorated after Tehran strongly criticized the brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests in Bahrain.

Iranian media reported in late April that the Islamic republic coast guard had stopped two boats carrying Iranian students from the southern port city of Bushehr to Bahrain.