Hail to the Iranian "democracy"
Iranian police warn opposition over November 4 rallies
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police warned the opposition on Tuesday to avoid using an anti-U.S. rally on November 4 to revive protests against the clerical establishment, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have urged their supporters to take to the streets on Wednesday, the 30th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran.
To prevent a repeat of the mass street protests that erupted after the disputed presidential election in June, Iranian authorities said security forces would confront any "illegal" gatherings.
"We are announcing that only anti-American rallies in front of the former American embassy in Tehran are legal. Other gatherings or rallies on Wednesday are illegal and will be strongly confronted by the police," Tehran police said in a statement, IRNA reported.
Anti-U.S. rallies will take place outside the former embassy, now called the "den of espionage" in Iran, to mark the seizure of the embassy after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution when radical students took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
Some reformist websites have called on people to gather outside the Russian embassy instead, in an apparent protest at Moscow's recognition of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election on June 12.
A reformist website said Karoubi would attend the rally outside the former U.S. embassy.
The June 12 vote, which moderate candidates Mousavi and Karoubi say was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election, sparked Iran's worst unrest in the past three decades and exposed deep divisions among the ruling elite.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the United States of trying to overthrow the clerical establishment.
On Tuesday, Khamenei said Iran would not be deceived into reconciliation with the United States, state radio reported.
"The American government is a really arrogant power and the Iranian nation will not be deceived with its apparent reconciliatory behavior until America abandons its arrogant attitude," Khamenei was quoted as saying.
NUCLEAR ROW
President Barack Obama has said he is ready to deal directly with Iran, something his predecessor largely rejected. Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 revolution.
Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Tehran says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.
The Iranian authorities say the June election was "the healthiest" since 1979 and Khamenei said last week it was a crime to question the outcome.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards and allied Islamic Basij militia, who suppressed the post-election protests, called on Iranians to "exercise vigilance in regard to the likelihood of mischief and plots by the enemy's agents," on November 4, IRNA said.
"Today, our duty is to defend the revolution and the Velayat-e faqih (Islamic jurisprudence)," Mohamadreza Naqdi, head of Iran's volunteer Basij militia, was quoted as saying by the Hayat-e No daily.
A senior police official said chanting slogans "unrelated to the anti-American rally" was also banned, IRNA reported.
Thousands were arrested during the post-election unrest and more than 100, including former senior officials, lawyers and activists are still in jail.
The opposition says more than 70 people were killed in the post-election violence. The official death toll is 36.
Mousavi's wife has called on the authorities to release women jailed after the election, the reformist Kaleme website reported on Tuesday.
"We demand immediate and unconditional release of all (political) prisoners, particularly those women who have been arrested," Zahra Rahnavard was quoted as saying.
Opposition demonstrators clashed with government supporters and police at annual pro-Palestinian rallies in September.
Iranian police warn opposition over November 4 rallies | International | Reuters
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