Ahmadinejad's rivals defiant on Iran vote

Moderate former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi unleashed fierce attacks on the outcome of the June 12 vote that returned Ahmadinejad to power as president for a second term.

Pro-reform ex-president Mohammad Khatami also criticized the vote and the mass arrests of demonstrators that followed, declaring in a hard-hitting statement: "Oppressing people will not help end the protests."

Although hardliners have appeared to be in the driving seat since security forces overcame street protests that erupted in the days after the poll, Mousavi and Karoubi have not yielded.

Both men issued statements on their websites describing Ahmadinejad's future government as "illegitimate" -- even though Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's ultimate arbiter, has upheld the result and thrown his weight behind the president.

"It is our historic responsibility to continue our protests and not to abandon our efforts to preserve the nation's rights," Mousavi wrote, urging the release of "children of the revolution" -- meaning scores of reformist political figures rounded up during Iran's gravest unrest since the shah fell in 1979.

Karoubi, a reformist former parliament speaker who came last in the poll, also pledged to fight on. "I don't consider this government legitimate," his statement said.

"Visible and invisible forces blocked any change in the executive power," he said, demanding the release of the "thousands" of people he said had been arrested since the poll.

Iran's police chief, Ismail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, put the total number of detainees at 1,032 and said most had been freed. The rest were "referred to the public and revolutionary courts," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying. He said 20 "rioters" had been killed and more than 500 police injured.

"COUP D'ETAT"

A leading reformist party said the election had been a "coup d'etat" that harmed the legitimacy of the establishment.

"We openly announce that the result is unacceptable," said a statement by the Islamic Iran Participation Front, established by reformers close to Khatami.

In his statement, the former president demanded of the authorities: "If you want to calm the atmosphere, why are you carrying out mass arrests?"

Addressing the judiciary, he said: "If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don't they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven't they been charged?"

Khatami added: "Obtaining confessions in front of cameras is a useless old method ... confessions under pressure are not valid."

Ahmadinejad canceled a trip to Libya for an African Union summit that would have given him another chance to burnish his image at a potentially friendly international forum.
His office gave no reason for the decision but a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the president was too busy to go.

Four days after the vote, Ahmadinejad attended a regional summit in Russia in a show of confidence, ignoring mass rallies against a process that Mousavi and Karoubi say was rigged.

Iran has accused foreign powers, especially Britain and the United States, of inciting the anti-government protests.

Stung by European Union criticism of the election aftermath, Iran's top military commander demanded that the 27-nation bloc say sorry for its "interference" before any resumption of talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

"Before apologizing for their huge mistake ... they have no right to talk about nuclear negotiations," Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi was quoted by Fars as saying.