Reporting from Tehran and Beirut - Large-scale protests spread across central Iranian cities Wednesday, offering the starkest evidence yet that the opposition movement that emerged from the disputed June presidential election has expanded beyond its base of mostly young, educated Tehran residents to at least some segments of the country's pious heartland.

Demonstrations took place in cities including provincial capital Esfahan, Iran's cultural center, and nearby Najafabad, the birthplace and hometown of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose death Saturday triggered the latest round of confrontations between the opposition movement and the government. The central region is considered by some as the conservative power base of the hard-liners long in power. Iranian authorities are clearly alarmed by the spread of the protests. Mojtaba Zolnour, a mid-ranking cleric serving as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative to the elite and powerful Revolutionary Guard, acknowledged widespread unrest around the country.

"There were many [acts of] sedition after the Islamic Revolution," he said, according to the website of the right-wing newspaper Resala on Wednesday. "But none of them spread the seeds of doubt and hesitation among various social layers as much as the recent one."

A reformist website, Rahesabz, or Green Path, reported that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security issued a statement banning governors from issuing permits for further memorial services for Montezari across the country.

There were also reports Wednesday of protests breaking out on university campuses in Tehran and the eastern city of Mashhad, Iran's second largest, and a violent clash broke out in the southern city of Sirjan over the execution of two men accused of criminal activity. Tehran's postelection mass protests, which were crushed by authorities, drew Iranians from all walks of life.