More massive protests planned in Iran

Iranian protesters planned to flood the streets of Tehran in the tens of thousands Thursday after opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi defied a government crackdown and called for another day of demonstrations against what he has denounced as a rigged election.

Mousavi’s announcement, which he made on his Web site, represented a direct challenge to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Islamic cleric-led government.

Civil government officials and protest leaders alike were awaiting an unusual public statement from Khamenei, who planned to deliver a sermon at Friday prayers, the most important religious address of the week — something he generally does only two or three times a year.

In rallies Wednesday, the fifth straight day of largely peaceful demonstrations, protesters dressed in black to mourn the deaths of at least seven compatriots earlier in the week. As they poured into Tehran’s Haft-e Tir Square, they sported wristbands and headbands in Mousavi’s green campaign colors.

Mousavi, who maintains that he won Friday’s election, called for the rallies to continue Thursday to protest the election, which the government declared had been won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“A number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred,” Mousavi said via a Web site. “I ask the people to express their solidarity with the families ... by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations.”

Tehran protests U.S. ‘meddling’
Meanwhile, the government’s battle against the protesters grew into a war of words with the United States, which denied Tehran’s charges that it was fueling post-election demonstrations that have filled the capital’s public squares since the weekend.

Iran’s state-run Press TV quoted the government as calling Western interference “intolerable.” The U.S. State Department confirmed the English-language channel’s report that the Iranian government had summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain.

The two countries broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But President Barack Obama has offered to open talks with Iranian leaders to end a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze.

P.J. Crowley, chief spokesman for the State Department, said in an interview with MSNBC-TV that the United States was withholding judgment about whether the election was conducted fairly. He reiterated Obama’s insistence that Washington was not interfering in Iranian internal affairs.

“This is not about the United States. It’s about Iran and the people of Iran,” Crowley said.

“It’s not for the United States to determine who will be the leader of Iran,” he said, adding that Washington hoped that Iran would “resolve this in a way that is transparent, credible and most of all peaceful.”

Obama has been criticized by some Republicans for his muted reaction to developments in Iran. The president said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that he shared the world’s concerns about the election but that he had to move cautiously because “the easiest way for reactionary forces inside Iran to crush reformers is to say it’s the U.S. that is encouraging those reformers.”

“What I’ve said is, look, it’s up to the Iranian people to make a decision,” he said. “We are not meddling.”

Ahmadinejad returns home
Ahmadinejad, who has dismissed the unrest as little more than “passions after a soccer match,” returned to Tehran on Wednesday after attending a summit meeting in Russia that was delayed a day by the unrest. He held a cabinet meeting and went on state television to insist that the people had voted for his “policies of justice.”

Video   Protesters scale Iran firewalls June 17: Protesters hit the streets of Tehran for a fifth day Wednesday despite continuing threats of a government crackdown, as technology helped demonstrators send images and reports from the scene. Nightly News

The crackdown on dissent continued, with more arrests of opposition figures reported and the country’s most powerful military force — the Revolutionary Guard — saying Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension” or face legal action.

Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system and has called for Iranians to unite behind their Islamic government, an extraordinary appeal in response to tensions over the presidential vote.

But Mousavi appears unwilling to back down. “We want a peaceful rally to protest the unhealthy trend of the election and realize our goal of annulling the results,” Mousavi said Wednesday.

Mousavi and his supporters accuse the government of rigging the election to declare Ahmadinejad the overwhelming winner. Their street protests, paired with dissent from powerful clerical and political figures, have presented one of the gravest threats to Iran’s complex blend of democracy and religious authority since the system emerged from the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"It's changing the way Iranians see the supreme leader and the system in general," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian affairs analyst. "That opens up the system up in ways it's never faced before."

Chances for a full-scale collapse are considered very remote. The ruling clerics still have deep public support and are defended by Iran's most powerful military force — the Revolutionary Guard — and a vast network of militias.

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