Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge yesterday to the country’s supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers.
A crackdown on dissent continued, with more arrests of opposition figures reported, and the country’s most powerful military force — the Revolutionary Guard — saying that Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension” or face legal action.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system and called for Iranians to unite behind their Islamic government, an extraordinary appeal in response to tensions over the presidential vote. But Mousavi appears unwilling to back down, issuing on his Web site a call for a mass demonstration today.
“We want a peaceful rally to protest the unhealthy trend of the election and realize our goal of annulling the results,” Mousavi said.
He called for his followers to wear or carry black in mourning for the alleged election fraud and the deaths of protesters, and said there should be “a new presidential election that will not repeat the shameful fraud from the previous election.”
Web sites associated with Mousavi and the reformists called for at least one rally later yesterday but the opposition leader made no reference to the gathering in his official statement.
Mousavi and his supporters accuse the government of rigging the June 12 election to declare hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the overwhelming winner. Their street protests, paired with dissent from powerful clerical and political figures, have presented one of the gravest threats to Iran’s complex blend of democracy and religious authority since the system emerged from the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Election tensions appeared to be spreading further into the Iranian political and religious classes — and even into sports.
Five Iranian soccer players, including captain Ali Karimi, wore green wristbands in an apparent sign of support for Mousavi at a World Cup Asian qualifying match in South Korea. State TV showed the players wearing them for the entire first half, but the bands were gone by the time the second half started. During the demonstrations, Mousavi supporters have been wearing green — the signature color of his movement.
Blogs and Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been vital conduits for Iranians to inform the world about protests and violence.
The Web became more essential after the government barred foreign media on Tuesday from leaving their offices to report on demonstrations on the streets of Tehran. Mousavi condemned the government for blocking Web sites.
Also See: Twitter’s finest hour
RSS