Iran’s opposition defied an official ban with a day of marching and mourning for slain protesters yesterday as it kept up the pressure on the regime over the disputed presidential election.
Facing their biggest crisis since the 1979 revolution, the country’s Islamic rulers have gone on the offensive, arresting opposition protesters and prominent reformists, clamping down on the media and lashing out at “meddling” by its foes, including the US.
Despite the crackdown, defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi called on his supporters to take to the streets again yesterday dressed in black in a sign of mourning for protesters slain in post-election clashes.
Tens of thousands of people joined what was billed as a “silent” protest rally on Wednesday, wearing green wrist and head-bands in the color of Mousavi’s campaign and carrying banners accusing re-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of having “stolen” their votes in last Friday’s poll, witnesses said.
State TV broadcast brief footage of the rally. Foreign media is barred from covering such events under restrictions imposed since the wave of public anger took hold in Iran, exposing deep divisions in the oil-rich nation.
At least seven people have been killed and many more wounded in the worst violence for at least a decade, with protests reported not only in Tehran but also spreading to other major cities across the country since polling day.
Meanwhile, Iran’s top legislative body decided to invite the three defeated candidates in last week’s disputed presidential election to a meeting tomorrow to discuss their complaints, its spokesman said yesterday.
The Guardian Council spokesman also told state radio the 12-member body had begun to carefully examine a total of 646 complaints submitted in connection with the June 12 vote.
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