President's supporters stage demonstrations in Iran

Dec 31, 2009, 13:38 GMT

Tehran - Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday staged state-sponsored demonstrations throughout the country against the opposition.

State television showed footage of the demonstrations in several Iranian cities, where people shouted slogans against the opposition and in favour of the president after unrest at the weekend in which police clashed with opposition protestors.

Tens of thousands also gathered in Tehran to counter the anti-Ahmadinejad protests held Sunday during the Shiite mourning ceremonies of Ashura.

'Death to Moussavi' was the main slogan heard at the Tehran demonstration, in reference to Mir Hossein Moussavi, one of the main opposition leaders who lost to Ahmadinejad in disputed June elections.

There were unconfirmed reports that Ahmadinejad supporters planned to stage a sit-in in front of one of Moussavi's offices until he is arrested.

Iran's deputy police chief, however, said Wednesday that were no plans to arrest Iranian opposition leaders, for fear of turning them into heroes.

'The arrests of the opposition leaders are not on the police agenda, as we do want to overexpose them by arresting them,' Ahmad-Reza Radan told the Mehr news agency.

Several hardliners, including President Ahmadinejad, have called for the arrest of the opposition leaders, especially after unrest on Sunday left eight dead and 500 to 800 demonstrators imprisoned.

The crowd in Tehran also criticized cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who heads the opposition party Etemad Melli (National Trust).

The demonstrators urged the judiciary to allow them to take revenge on opponents for having marred the holy day of Ashura.

'There should be a difference between the Hezbollah 'party of God' and Hezb'e Sheytan (party of the devil),' Ayatollah Mehdi Aalamolhoda said in a speech at the main gathering in Enqelab square in central Tehran.

Aalamolhoda, who is the Friday prayer leader in the religious city of Mashad and a supporter of Ahmadinejad, termed those undermining the Islamic system as blasphemous and enemies of God.

'The Iranian judiciary should declare a deadline for the opposition leaders to repent their actions, or otherwise, they would be branded enemies of God and face the relevant consequences,' said the ayatollah, referring to the death sentence, the punishment for such offenders.

The crowd shouted its approval of the ayatollah's demand and cried, 'Moussavi and Karroubi should be executed.'

Aalamolhoda added that Ahmadinejad's supporters and the establishment should no longer only react to the opposition groups' moves, but take the initiative.

The demonstration in Tehran was broadcast live on four state television channels, which have this week devoted most of their programming to criticizing the opposition as mercenaries of foreign states.

Local media reported that millions attended the pro-government demonstrations. The Fars news blamed Western media for having downplayed the number of demonstrators and calling the gatherings state-run.

Iran's police chief said the authorities would adopt a harsher posture with protestors.

'During last Sunday's protests, 120 police were injured, with 60 of them still hospitalized, and two police cars and several motorbikes were burned by the protestors,' General Ismaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam told reporters Wednesday.

'Nowhere in the world are police beaten up by protestors,' he said. 'From now on, both police and the judiciary will more harshly confront them.'

The general denied that government authorities had driven a police car into a crowd on Sunday, hitting several protestors and killing at least two of them, as purportedly shown on video posted on the internet.

'During the unrest, one car that had previously been stolen hit two people and killed them, and police are investigating the case,' he said.

He said 500 protestors were arrested by the police and separate arrests were also carried out by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

Opposition websites had reported that at least 800 protestors were arrested, including 300 in Tehran, during the latest unrest to rock Iran since the presidential election. At least 18 dissidents close to Moussavi's Green Movement were detained Monday and Tuesday.

At least eight people were reported killed Sunday, including Moussavi's 35-year-old nephew, who, according to the police chief, was shot dead by unknown perpetrators in a stolen car.

Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi was quoted by Fars Wednesday as saying that he was probably killed by members of the Iranian opposition group People's Mujaheddin of Iran (PMOI).

Iran regards PMOI as a terrorist group after implicating it in the assassinations of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including the president and prime minister in 1980.

The United States has also listed the PMOI as a terrorist group, but it was removed from the European Union's terrorism list this year after a legal battle.

Ali Moussavi, whose body was examined by the coroner office to clarify the case of death, was buried Wednesday in a hastily organized ceremony at the Behesht Zahre graveyard in southern Tehran to avoid another protest demonstration by the opposition.

Also Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reacted Wednesday to the unrest and said that although the establishment might have lost some of its supporters, in return it had gained double as much.

The leader also blamed Western leaders of having having been influenced by reports by foreign and 'Zionist' (Israeli) media that had distorted the realities of the latest developments in Iran.

Meanwhile the official news agency IRNA claimed Wednesday that the Revolutionary Guards and the intelligence ministry had transported Moussavi and Karroubi to the northern Iranian city of Kelarabad to save their lives from angry Ahmadinejad supporters who had earlier called for their execution.

Several reformist websites categorically denied the IRNA report as baseless and said that both men were at their homes in Tehran.