Iran’s opposition seeks permission to march in support of Egyptian protesters

Iran's opposition leaders have asked permission to stage a protest in Tehran next week to express solidarity with ongoing protests in Tunisia and Egypt.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the heads of the Green movement in Iran, have issued a call for the demonstrations to be held on Monday.

Mousavi (a former prime minister) and Karroubi have wriottena joint letter to the interior minister, Mustafa Mohammad Najjar, asking permission to hold the march from Imam Hossein Square to Azadi (or Freedom) Square in central Tehran.

The green movement staged huge street demonstrations in June 2009, after a disputed presidential election led to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second term in office. Up to three million people participated in those actions across the country -- these rallies amounted to the biggest popular uprising in Iran’s modern history.

Undoubtedly, the starting point of what we are witnessing in the streets of Tunis, Sana'a [Yemen], Cairo, Alexandria and Suez should be seen in the Iranian protests, Mousavi wrote on his website.

The Middle East is on the threshold of great events these days that could affect the fate of the region and the world. .

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has already praised the political upheaval in Egyptian uprising – bur he likened it to the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979.

Today's events in the north of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation,” the Ayatollah said during a prayer sermon last week, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. “They have special meaning. This is the same Islamic awakening which resulted in the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation.

While Iran’s constitution permits peaceful demonstrations, analysts think it is unlikely that Ahmadinejad's government will allow the marches.