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Supreme leader says Iran's opposition violates law
Reuters - 1 hour 53 minutes ago
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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN - Iran's supreme leader gave a stern warning to the pro-reform opposition on Sunday, accusing it of violating the law and encouraging foreign enemies to undermine the Islamic Republic.
Declaring that opposition rallies were illegal, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made clear he would not tolerate any more protests by reformers seeking to revive their challenge to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad six months after his disputed re-election.
Khamenei effectively sided with hardliners who have called for tougher action against the opposition.
Tension has increased in Iran since student backers of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi last Monday clashed in Tehran with security forces armed with batons and tear gas in the largest such anti-government demonstration in months.
State television has broadcast footage of what it said were opposition supporters tearing up and trampling on a picture of the Islamic Republic's revered founder, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during the December 7 protests.
"They are openly violating the law, they insulted Imam Khomeini," Khamenei said in a hard-hitting televised speech.
The opposition earlier accused the authorities of seeking to use the reported incident relating to Khomeini as a pretext for action to uproot the reform movement. Some moderate websites suggested Mousavi may be arrested.
Hardliners have in the past called for Mousavi to be prosecuted for fomenting widespread street unrest after the June poll, which triggered days of huge opposition rallies.
The election plunged Iran into its deepest internal crisis since the Islamic revolution three decades ago and exposed deepening divisions within the establishment.
Analysts say the internal political crisis has further clouded prospects for any resolution of a long-running row with the West over Tehran's nuclear programme, which Washington and its allies fear is aimed at making bombs. Tehran denies this.
"ELECTION IS OVER"
Khamenei said "some people violated the law, created riots and encouraged people to stand against the system," in a clear reference to leaders of the opposition.
"They also prepared the ground for the enemies of the revolution...to insult the system," he said in an address to a group of clerics, who chanted slogans in support of Khomeini.
Khamenei said opposition rallies where illegal and urged the authorities to identify those behind the "insult" to Khomeini, who led the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah.
The authorities have rejected opposition charges of vote fraud and portrayed the pro-Mousavi protests that erupted after the poll as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the state.
Last Monday's protests were much smaller than those in the days after the vote. But the mood seemed more radical with demonstrators chanting slogans against the clerical establishment and not just criticising Ahmadinejad's victory.
"Those who stage illegal rallies they have no root in the society," said Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini after his death in 1989. "The election is over. It was legal and they could not demonstrate their claim ."
Mousavi, who advocated a return to Khomeini's "fundamental values" during his election campaign, has been quoted as condemning the incident relating to the picture. But hardliners still clearly blamed his supporters for the "insult."
Crowds of clerics from theology schools and other leadership loyalists staged pro-government rallies in cities across Iran on Saturday, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to opponents of the Supreme Leader," official media reported.
More such rallies were held on Sunday, including at the Imam Khomeini shrine outside Tehran and at universities.
A statement posted on Mousavi's official Kaleme website said, referring to the accusations: "By implementation of a pre-planned scenario to insult Khomeini and linking it to the students...they are paving the way for unconventional methods." It did not elaborate.
Another reformist website, Tagheer, said: "Based on reports ... Mousavi may be arrested."
Any detention of Mousavi, whose supporters say the June election was rigged, may provoke new opposition demonstrations.
Thousands of Mousavi supporters were detained after the vote, including senior reformers. Most have been freed but about 80 people have received jail terms of up to 15 years and five have been sentenced to death over the post-vote unrest.
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