Iran’s opposition issued fresh calls for freedom on Saturday as the anniversary of a presidential election that sparked deadly street unrest passed off without major anti-government protests.
Demonstrators stayed away after opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi cancelled plans for new rallies against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because of safety concerns.
However, the authorities still deployed thousands of security personnel in Tehran to quell any dissent, with police and the feared Islamic Basij militia out in force, especially around Tehran University and Sharif University.
The opposition leaders have vowed to continue their struggle.
Late on Friday, Mousavi said Iran’s rulers had distanced themselves from the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution and were “shutting peoples’ mouths, banning the media, holding elections as we saw last year and filling the prisons” with their opponents.
The security forces used deadly force to quell the massive demonstrations that erupted after Ahmadinejad was returned to power in June last year in what the opposition alleged was a massively rigged poll.
However, no major protests were reported on Saturday, although Borna news agency said a group of pro-Mousavi students at Tehran University shouted Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), an opposition mantra.
Borna, an offshoot of the state news agency IRNA, said the demonstrators soon dispersed.
Mousavi’s Web site Kaleme.com reported that groups of students also staged a brief protest in the nearby Sharif University and clashed with Basij militiamen.
The anti-Ahmadinejad chant “Death to Dictator” was heard late on Saturday in some parts of Tehran.
Earlier police and militiamen flooded Tehran University, Haft-e Tir Square, Azadi (Freedom) Square, Enghelab (Revolution) Square, and Valiasr Square — all scenes of previous opposition protests.
Security forces could also be seen in buses parked in nearby alleys, while many — some wearing masks — toured the streets on motorcycles.
Iran’s deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan told ISNA news agency that a “few people in Tehran” had been arrested, but “no other problems were reported in the country.”
Kaleme.com reported that a reformist journalist, Abdolreza Tajik, had been arrested, but did not say when, adding that this was the third time he had been detained in 12 months.
In Paris, Iranian Nobel laureate and rights activist Shirin Ebadi told France 24 television the protests had subsided “because whoever went to demonstrate was either killed or arrested.”
“But people go on protesting in other ways. The gap between the population and the government is increasing daily,” the outspoken critic, who left Iran on the eve of last year’s election, said of the regime.
The poll on June 12 last year bitterly divided Iran’s political elite and dragged supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly backs Ahmadinejad, into the crisis.
He accused the West of masterminding the protests in a bid to topple the Islamic regime.
However, Mousavi and Karroubi, who were close to Iran’s revolutionary father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, reject such charges.
For them, the opposition “Green Movement” is a grassroots initiative pursuing revolutionary aspirations including free elections, freedom of expression and respect for human rights.
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