Iran Guards warn opposition against Nov. 4 rallies

Mon, Nov 2 06:39 PM

Enlarge Photo Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard shout anti-U.S. and anti-Israel slogans during Friday prayers in...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who helped to quell protests after last June's election, warned the opposition on Monday not to use anti-U.S. rallies this week to stage new demonstrations.

Moderate opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi appeared to urge his supporters on Saturday to take to the streets on Nov. 4, the 30th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran.

The authorities, seeking to avoid any repeat of the huge demonstrations that erupted after the disputed election won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, say security forces will confront any illegal gatherings.

The Guards called on the Iranian people to "exercise vigilance in regard to the likelihood of mischief and plots by the enemy's agents and some unaware and misguided people on Nov. 4", the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The Iranian nation will not allow any group to impose itself and use diversionary and false slogans on Wednesday," it quoted a Guards statement as saying.

Anti-Western rallies usually take place outside the old U.S. embassy -- now called the "den of espionage" in Iran -- to mark the day in 1979 when radical students scaled its walls and took 52 Americans hostage.

Some reformist websites have called on people to gather outside the Russian embassy instead, in an apparent protest at Moscow's swift recognition of Ahmadinejad's election victory.

One website, Mowjcamp, said boxes of sweets were being distributed in Tehran and the holy Shi'ite Muslim city of Qom with a message referring to Wednesday's Iranian date: "We will see each other on 13th of Aban."

"FOREIGN OPPRESSORS"

Deputy police chief Ahmadreza Radan said: "Those who intend to hold illegal gatherings as well as those who encourage people ... to stage gatherings will have to answer for their actions."

The powerful Guardian Council, Iran's top legislative body, threw its weight behind the authorities' warning message.

It is confident that "the revolutionary youth will not allow a domestic group linked to foreign oppressors and lawbreakers to blemish this great day," media quoted a statement as saying.

In September, opposition demonstrators clashed with government backers and police at annual pro-Palestinian rallies.

The June 12 election sparked Iran's worst unrest since the Islamic revolution three decades ago and exposed deep divisions in the establishment.

But the Guards and an allied Islamic militia suppressed the protests and thousands were arrested. Many of them, including a number of former government figures, have been put on trial.

The authorities deny vote rigging, and have portrayed the unrest as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the Islamic state.

The opposition says more than 70 people were killed in the post-election violence. Officials say the death toll was half that and members of the security forces were among the victims.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week it was a crime to question the election.

A senior adviser to Khamenei said on Monday people standing against the revolution and its leadership had "no status" before the nation and urged them to return to the embrace of the Islamic establishment,, ISNA news agency reported.

"Otherwise our nation ... will isolate them," said Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a former Guards commander-in-chief.

Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran during the hostage crisis in 1980.

(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

Inside News

Editor's picks