(Mir Hossein Mousavi | Facebook | 14 September 2009)

Mir Hossein Mousavi: There have been reports that following the rumours regarding the possible arrest of Karoubi, Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani has announced that should this take place, he will resign from all of his governmental positions (Which are key positions in IR: Head of the Expediency Council and head of the Assembly of Experts). This would be very costly for the regime as it would bring it to a new level of illegitimacy!

Mir Hossein Mousavi: Another video of the heavily controlled city of Qom. Despite intense security measures in the holy city of Qom, people gathered in front of Grand Ayatollah Saneei’s office last night after his strong speech for the Qadr night ceremony and showed their protest to the current events. They were chanting “death to the dictator,” “Coup administration, resign, resign” and “We will meet on Qods Day.”

Mir Hossein Mousavi: Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, in a message addressed to other Grand Ayatollahs while condemning and expressing regret for the actions of the coup government, asked other Grand Ayatollahs to follow Prophet Mohammad’s advise and not to be silent while witnessing all these oppressions and violations of public rights; and once and for all correct government’s wrong policies and resolve the current illegitimacy crisis.

Mir Hossein Mousavi: The Assembly of Combatant Clergymen in a statement invites everyone to participate in Qods Day rallies and announced that they will also attend the demonstration alongside people. They stated that Qods Day is the day to protest to oppression, occupation and assault. It is the day to defend human dignity and freedom in support for all the innocent and oppressed peoples of the world including the Palestinian people.

Mir Hossein Mousavi: Announcements & Photos of “Green” efforts to spread the word about “Green Qods Day” demonstrations with homemade printouts as a tool in lack of national or any conventional media!

Mir Hossein Mousavi: The Green Wave will attend Qods Day demonstrations in last Friday of Ramadan in same routes set by government but will bring their Green symbols and will protest to coup agent’s behaviour that treats its own people just the way occupiers are treating Palestinians. Routes have been set in other provinces too and in Tehran if they won’t let Hashemi lead Friday Prayer, Green will end their protest in “Revolution” Square.

Mir Hossein Mousavi: Protests reached the heavily controlled city of Qom. Despite intense security measures in the holy city of Qom, people gathered in front of Grand Ayatollah Saneei’s office last night after his strong speech for the Qadr night ceremony and showed their protest to the current events.

Source of Summary:  Iran News Digest

(AP Tehran | New York Times | 28 August 2009) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called for the leaders of the opposition to be prosecuted over Iran’s postelection turmoil, stepping up pressure against the pro-reform movement that says he won the election by fraud.

It was the first time Ahmadinejad has made such a call, publicly siding with hard-line politicians and clerics and commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard who have demanded in recent weeks that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and his top allies be arrested.

Ahmadinejad took an even tougher line than his top ally, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who earlier this week said he saw no evidence that opposition leaders were tools of Iran’s foreign enemies, a claim that hard-liners have made.

The differing stances suggest there are divisions within Iran’s leadership over how far to take to heavy crackdown against the opposition since the disputed June 12 presidential election.

Hard-liners appear to be seeking to completely crush the pro-reform movement, calling for its political parties to be banned and leaders detained. Khamenei seems to be wary that going too far could fuel a backlash against the clerical leadership, which has already been weakened by the postelection crisis. Khamenei holds ultimate say in political issues in Iran, but he also needs to satisfy hard-liners and the Revolutionary Guard.

The government has already put on trial more than 100 senior figures and activists from the pro-reform opposition, accusing them of being part of a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the Islamic Republic through a ”velvet revolution.” Prosecutors allege that the wave of mass protests that erupted after the election claiming fraud were instigated by the opposition to spark that revolution.

But so far, despite hard-liners’ calls, there has been no move to arrest the very top rung of the opposition — Mousavi and his allies Mahdi Karroubi and former President Mohammad Khatami. Doing so would be a major escalation in the confrontation.

In a harshly worded statement, Khatami lashed out at hard-liners, saying they were accused of ”treason” in the public’s eyes because of the fraudulent vote. He said the claims that the opposition protests were part of a foreign plot were a ”very big mistake” and aimed to ”justify violent, illegal and monopolistic behavior” by the government.

”The sacred Friday prayer podium has been given to those who … call for the punishment of prominent figures … while they are accused in the eyes of the public for committing treason themselves,” he said, referring to hard-line clerics who have denounced the opposition during Tehran’s main Friday prayers, one of the country’s most potent political platforms.
Khatami said killing protesters and abusing detainees in custody has revealed the true nature of the ruling system in dealing with peaceful protests. ”Is this the merciful Islamic image that defends morality and the people’s basic rights?” he said in a statement posted on the Web late Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands joined street protests after the election, supporting Mousavi’s claims of fraud, until security forces, the Revolutionary Guard and the pro-government Basij militia crushed the demonstrations with a crackdown in which hundreds were arrested. The opposition says at least 69 people were killed and that many of those detained were abused, tortured and even raped in prison.

The opposition has dismissed the month-old trial of opposition figures and activists as a ‘’show trial” in which defendants were forced to make public confessions admitting to a plot.

Ahmadinejad’s comments Friday came in a speech to thousands ahead of the weekly Friday prayers in Tehran. He said those on trial were ”deceived” into participating in the alleged plot and that the leaders should be punished.

”These deceived, second-tier elements should be dealt with with Islamic mercy. Don’t give immunity and protection to the main elements while punishing the deceived second-tier elements,” he said.

”There must be a serious confrontation with the leaders and key elements who organized and provoked (the riots) and carried out the enemy’s plan. They have to be dealt with seriously,” he said, without directly naming the leaders.

Ahmadinejad also admitted for the first time that some detained protesters were abused in custody but also denied any government involvement, claiming instead that it was the work of Iran’s enemies and the opposition.

”These actions that were carried out in custody … were part of the enemy’s scenario,” he said. ”Security, military and intelligence forces are free from these shameful acts.”

Top police officials and a parliamentary probe has already confirmed that some prisoners were abused by their jailers. The government has been struggling to contain outrage among many Iranians over the accusations of abuse. The opposition says some detainees were tortured to death. Hard-liners have particularly been angered at Karroubi, who claims some prisoners were raped. The government says about 30 people were killed in the postelection crackdown.

(Borzou Daragahi | LA Times | 8 August 2009) – Iran’s opposition leader today announced the formation of a new political front aimed at continuing the struggle against what he described as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government and maintaining the grassroots political movement unleashed by the nation’s disputed June elections.Defying the threats by hard-liners to have him tried for sedition, Mir-Hossein Mousavi declared the creation of “The Green Path of Hope” as an attempt to institutionalize the political movement built on his presidential campaign and the outrage that followed the disputed results and the ensuing violent crackdown.

“Numerous volunteer and independent social networks throughout the society form the body of this movement,” Mousavi told a group of doctors today, according to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency. “The Green Path of Hope is in fact aimed at regaining people’s denied rights.”

The announcement came amid ongoing strife between factions fighting for dominance within the country’s deeply fractured political establishment. Hours after the announcement, the Revolutionary Court, controlled by hard-liners close to Ahmadinejad, announced the convening of a third session on Sunday of a mass trial against 25 defendants accused of fomenting weeks of unrest after the election, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency reported.

International human rights monitors and domestic critics have derided the televised trials of prisoners without access to lawyers as Stalinist “show trials” that fail to measure up to Iranian legal standards.

The court also announced that seven alleged leaders of the country’s Baha’i community will stand trial on charges of spying for Israel, desecrating Islam and spreading propaganda against the system, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Shiite clergy consider the Baha’i religion, born in 19th century Iran, heretical.

In his comments today, Mousavi blasted the nation’s justice system. “We would not have witnessed so many crises today had [the authorities] adopted fair positions and respected people’s rights . . . instead of humiliating people on state television,” he said in reference to a series of awkward televised confessions by defendants held in solitary confinement for weeks.

“Instead of accusing million-strong demonstrators of connection to foreigners, you have to find those who are waging a poisonous propaganda war on our people,” he said.

Iran’s justice system has also come under scrutiny after allegations of jailhouse rape and torture in detention centers leveled by former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, an ally of Mousavi. Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, after dismissing the charges less than 24 hours after vowing to investigate them, today declared that 100 cases of alleged rape had been investigated. Mehdi Taeb, a pro-Ahmadinejad lawmaker, called on authorities to whip Karroubi if he couldn’t find four witnesses for each case of alleged rape.

Iranian authorities say some prison guards have already been dismissed for alleged abuses. But Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, called on Iranian authorities Thursday to hold the chiefs of the security agencies accountable as well.

Despite concerns about Iran’s justice system, there are few signs Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has any plans to adjust the country’s course.

He officially named hard-liner Sadegh Larijani, a member of the powerful and conservative Guardian Council and the brother of parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, to a five-year term as head of the judiciary and moved the current judiciary chief, Mohammad Hashemi Shahroudi, to the 12-person Guardian Council, which this week elected hard-liner Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as its chief for the next year.

With street protests quiet, factional disputes intensify. Hard-line clerics call for opposition leader Karroubi to stand trial, and reformist lawmakers want supreme leader Khamenei investigated.

(Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim | Los Angeles Times | 15 August 2009) - Rival camps within Iran’s corridors of power intensified their threats against each other Friday, signaling potentially dangerous clashes within elite circles and the security establishment after the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Hard-line clerics close to Ahmadinejad called for prominent reformist Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament and a presidential candidate, to stand trial for making allegations of jailhouse rape and torture in the country’s detention centers.

On the opposing side, a group of former reformist lawmakers issued a letter late Thursday demanding that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, be investigated by the Assembly of Experts, clerics who have the power to replace the supreme leader, in relation to the election’s violent aftermath.

The factional disputes, which are expected to get worse before the naming of the next Cabinet, come as street protests have faded.

“The ball of crisis is still rolling, if not on the streets, within the ruling establishment,” said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a reformist journalist and human rights activist in Tehran.

Protesters, nursing bruises and stifled by late-summer temperatures, are sitting back for the moment, apparently hoping they can accomplish their minimal goal — removing from power Ahmadinejad and his circle of hard-liners in the security apparatus — without more bloodshed.

Analysts said that opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s leading challenger in the election, has been reluctant to call for protests for fear he would be arrested. His news website, Ghalamnews.ir, has been shut down for days, and many of his deputies remain in prison.

“There is a plan for paralyzing the system and bringing down Ahmadinejad,” said Mohsen Sazegara, a Washington-based analyst and political activist who supports the opposition. “But Mousavi can’t announce it because he’ll be arrested. If he doesn’t say anything, it doesn’t mean that within the opposition there’s no plan.”

For now, neither hard-liners nor reformists appear to be backing down.

At Friday prayers, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a staunch supporter of Ahmadinejad, reiterated demands by his conservative allies that the judiciary put Karroubi on trial for making allegedly false accusations that prisoners swept up in a wave of protests were raped and tortured in prison.

According to a respected reformist news website, Ahmadinejad has submitted a proposal to the country’s Supreme National Security Council for the arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi, along with other prominent reformists. The plan was spurned by the “highest authorities” for fear that it would cause the “collapse” of the system, reported Norooznews.ir.

Reformists have not gone away despite such threats. The letter to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani signed by hundreds of former lawmakers called for the Assembly of Experts, which he oversees, to examine whether Khamenei should be replaced under an article in the constitution.

Karroubi, meanwhile, has issued more details of prison abuse, stating on his website Thursday that he had evidence that prisoners were stripped naked and forced to walk and scream like animals.

The allegations of sexual abuse, which tarnish Ahmadinejad and his clique as corrupt, are particularly effective in wooing moderate clerics and those within the political establishment, analysts said.

With opposition figures constrained by the threat of prison, hard-liners are finding themselves unsure about the depth of discontent within the country. Their increasingly strident calls to lock up Mousavi and Karroubi prompted the son of former longtime Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi, popular among those in the security apparatus, to warn authorities about consequences that he did not specify.

“The knowledgeable ones among these authorities, if there are any of them, know well that such gestures are like playing with fire,” Hassan Younesi wrote on his blog Wednesday night.

Even conservatives complain that Ahmadinejad has not met the minimum requirements they spelled out to avoid a protracted fight over his next Cabinet team, which he must submit to parliament early next week.

In recent days he has bucked an Iranian law by taking de facto control of the Intelligence Ministry and promptly purging it of longtime ranking officials deemed insufficiently loyal. He also dismissed the head of the Islamic Republic News Agency on charges of being too balanced.

Ahmadinejad managed to elevate his brother in-law, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, to chief of staff despite the disapproval of Khamenei and moved to promote a close ally, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, to the helm of the national police.

In a meeting with a group of scholars associated with the hard-line Basiji militia days before his inauguration, Ahmadinejad made a reference to seizing opponents by their collars and sticking “their heads to the ceiling.”

“Let me take the oath of office,” he said, “and wait for the government to begin its work.”

He later explained that he meant Iran’s foreign rivals, not his domestic foes.

(Zahra Hosseinian and Hossein Jaseb | Reuters | 15 August 2009) – Iran’s Supreme Leader appointed Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani as the new head of the country’s judiciary on Saturday, state television reported.Some reformist websites had recently reported that Larijani was hesitant to accept the position because of the mass arrests of moderate detainees over unrest that erupted after the country’s disputed June 12 presidential election.

He will face controversy straight away — the semi-official ISNA news agency said a new trial would start on Sunday of 25 opposition supporters detained after the election.

Larijani, a brother of parliament speaker Ali Larijani and a member of Iran’s hardline constitutional watchdog the Guardian Council, replaces Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi whose 10-year term has ended.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a letter to Larijani that he hoped the judiciary would flourish under him. Larijani, a cleric born in Iraq’s holy Shi’ite city of Najaf, will serve a five-year term.

Iran arrested hundreds of people after the vote during the country’s worst street unrest since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

After police and security forces quelled the street turmoil, the leadership put on trial more than 100 moderates, despite the damage it might inflict on the government’s legitimacy and relations with the West.

“Some 25 more detainees will go on trial on Sunday,” ISNA said, without naming them. They will be the third group to appear in court.

The losing candidates say 69 people were killed in unrest that erupted after the vote. The figure is more than double the official toll of 26.

OFFICIALS SACKED

Karoubi said on Sunday some protesters, both men and women, had been raped in detention. His allegation was rejected by Iranian authorities as “baseless.” Karoubi insists he has evidences proving the mistreatment of detainees.

Many of the post-election detainees were held in south Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, built to house people breaching vice laws. At least three people died in custody there and widespread anger erupted as reports of abuse in jail spread.

The abuse allegations, rejected also by Tehran’s police chief, have created a rift among hardline politicians, many of whom backed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election.

Ahmadinejad, who was sworn in on August 5, must name a cabinet and seek parliament’s approval in what may be a stormy process.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported 12 police officers and judges had been sacked and reported to judiciary over their involvement in mistreating detainees at Kahrizak.

“The police has sacked a number of its employees who had violated the law in relation to Kahrizak,” Mehr quoted Parviz Sarvari, a member of a parliamentary committee in charge of investigating the cases of detainees, as saying on Saturday.

“Even the judge that ordered the transfer of detainees to Kahrizak had violated the law and should be punished,” he said, according to Mehr.

The Supreme Leader ordered the closure of Kahrizak last month for lacking the necessary standards to preserve the rights of those arrested.

At least 200 people remain in jail, including senior moderate politicians, activists, lawyers and journalists.

Reformist website mowjcamp.com said some detainees in Tehran’s notorious Even prison had started a hunger strike on Saturday morning. The website did not give further details and the report could not be independently confirmed.

The presidential poll has also plunged the country into its biggest internal crisis in the past three decades and has exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite.

Moderate defeated presidential candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi say the vote was rigged to secure the re-election of Ahmadinejad but the authorities have said it was the healthiest election the country has had.

(Borzou Daragahi | Babylon & Beyond | 11 August 2009) Observers have for weeks heard various theories that purport to prove that Iran’s June 12 presidential elections were rigged. They have come from Western think tanks, mathematicians and, of course, supporters of opposition figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who ran and lost against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.But the latest tantalizing tidbit, from the camp of Ahmadinejad, comes from the website Rajanews.com, which is run by a strident backer of the president, lawmaker Fatemeh Rajabi.

In paragraphs tucked into the end of an article posted Monday, the website may have inadvertently published information damning to its own president while trying to smear the speaker of parliament, a conservative rival of Ahmadinejad.

According to an anonymous member of parliament quoted in the article, which has been extensively reprinted, Iran’s well-connected parliament Speaker Ali Larijani telephoned Mousavi the evening of the election to congratulate him on his victory.

How did he know to congratulate Mousavi?

Because, Rajanews reports, he had “access to firsthand and classified information and news” that he should not have disclosed.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

What he did on the afternoon of the Election Day by calling Mousavi and congratulating him on the finalization of his presidency cannot be overlooked. As the head of a branch of power, he is considered to have access to firsthand and classified information and news. When he congratulated Mousvai at a time when voting hours had not even ended yet, it made him delusional and encouraged him to take the seditious and provocative positions and behaviours which disturbed people’s security and calm and significantly harmed the might and honor of the system.

The article also attempts to cast doubt on doctoral degree of Larijani, who was by all accounts a model student and accomplished scholar who has published books on Western philosophy.

Ahmadinejad is embroiled in a huge fight with Larijani and much of the rest of the parliament over the composition of his Cabinet.

According to the Unite4Iran Blog, there have been reports of renewed cyber attacks on the social media sites of members of the opposition in Iran, including the Facebook page of presidential candidate Mousavi and his wife. Twitter is also reported to not be working in Iran. Questions abound whether this is the government’s retaliation for the cyber attacks of several groups on Iranian government sites.   Internet activists had also targeted websites of Ahmadinejad on his inaguration.  Moreover, instructions have also been circulating in the Iranian blogosphere for how to increase the security of Facebook pages. Please share this posting with friends in Iran. 

National Public Radio – August 3, 2009

By Mike Schuster

Despite the harsh police crackdown in Tehran, Iran’s opposition movement continues to bring thousands of protesters into the streets to challenge the government.

Just last week, several thousand came out to commemorate those who have been killed since the protests erupted after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme leader formally endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term.

More protests are expected this week when Ahmadinejad is inaugurated on Wednesday.

In a matter of weeks, the opposition movement has transformed itself from a campaign for a presidential candidate to a broader movement challenging the leaders and the foundation of the Islamic republic.

Protest Has ‘Life Of Its Own’

After a lull, the protest movement appears to be gaining strength again, says Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University.

“It is precisely because the ruling elite of the Islamic republic is conscious of the snowballing effect of these demonstrations that they are cracking down on them so severely and violently. And I’m absolutely convinced that it will continue. This is no longer just in reaction to the presidential election. This has assumed a life of its own,” Dabashi says.

What the opposition movement wants is not entirely clear. The chant, “Down with the dictator,” dominates the demonstrations. But there is a certain ambiguity to that, which seems to suit protesters of different political stripes.

The sentiment could be directed against Ahmadinejad, but also at Iran’s supreme leader himself, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which would be a more profound challenge to the foundation of the Islamic republic, says Farideh Farhi, an Iranian specialist at the University of Hawaii.

“I think it has ultimately been directed at the supreme leader precisely because he has chosen to take responsibility not only for the fraud that occurred during the election, but also by threatening violence after the election and actually implementing violence after the election,” she says.

No Clear Leader

It is also not clear who is leading the opposition movement, if anyone. Ostensibly, defeated presidential candidate Mir Houssein Mousavi is its leader, but his actions have been severely restricted. He rarely appears in public and is confined to posting his views on Web sites.

Some of Iran’s prominent political figures, such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former President Mohammad Khatami, have attempted to set specific goals for the movement, but with little real impact, says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of Middle East studies at Syracuse University.

“Politicians of the ilk of Rafsanjani and Khatami are trying to see if there is any middle-of-the-road type of a solution, either by calling for a referendum or by asking for the release of political prisoners. I don’t think that this is going to satisfy the citizenry any more, and it seems to me that that ship has already left the port,” he says.

It has been a season of political surprises in Iran, beginning in May, just a few weeks before Iran’s June 12 presidential election. Overnight it seemed, hundreds of thousands of people were turning out to support Mousavi, the reformist candidate. He chose green as the symbol of his campaign, and people all over Iran began wearing the color.

Violence Galvanizes Instead Of Deters

On June 13, officials announced that Ahmadinejad was re-elected president — by a seemingly improbable two-to-one margin, no less. And the green movement began its rapid transformation into an opposition, surprising everyone, Farhi says.

“Most people did not expect this kind of popular outrage. Furthermore, they did not expect this popular outrage to persist,” Farhi says.

The violent methods used to try to crush the movement further fueled the outrage. In one cell-phone video, posted on YouTube in late July, a helmeted policeman shoots at demonstrators with a rifle. A man in plainclothes also shoots at the demonstrators with a pistol. One protester falls and a half dozen come to his aid. The people making the video shout at the demonstrators, giving them directions on where to go to get away from the police.

Despite the violence, thousands are still turning out to challenge the government. They don’t number in the millions as they did back in June. But there are still many women, older people and some poorly dressed protesters to supplement the young men — largely from the educated middle class — who are taking the worst beatings.

The demands of the opposition remain vague, but that could change. Repression often breeds radicalization, which could lead to new surprises in the astounding political drama that still has Iran in its grip.

Protesters chanting slogans at an opposition rally at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery outside Tehran on Thursday.

By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI (New York Times, July 30, 2009)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Thousands of people gathered in Tehran on Thursday to commemorate those killed in Iran’s post-election crackdown, but a vast deployment of police officers used tear gas and wooden batons to disperse them, in some of the largest and most violent street clashes in weeks.

The mourners gathered at the freshly-dug graves of protesters, including Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman whose bloodied image has become an icon of the opposition movement. As opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi arrived at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, the police barred him from entering, and angry mourners chanted “Neda lives! Ahmadinejad is dead!” referring to Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, witnesses said.

Later, large crowds massed in several areas in central and northern Tehran, but riot police mostly beat them back, and there were reports of a number of arrests.

Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, at a memorial in Tehran that turned into an opposition rally.

Opposition leaders had hoped for a vast and peaceful public outpouring, despite the withering summer heat and the Interior Ministry’s refusal to grant permission for the gathering. Outrage over the deaths in prison of several protesters has spread to Iran’s hard-liners in recent days, and Thursday was a day of unusual symbolic importance: the end of the 40-day mourning period after Ms. Agha-Soltan and others were killed.

But the authorities, after releasing 140 detainees on Tuesday in an apparent effort to defuse the issue, were equally determined to prevent a broad show of popular discontent. Hundreds of police officers surrounded the mourners at the cemetery, and riot police officers began gathering in force in central Tehran early in the day.

On Wednesday, the leader of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, Abdullah Araghi, issued a stern warning against any public mourning ritual, saying, “We are not joking — we will confront those who want to fight against the clerical establishment,” the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

Some opposition supporters were heartened by the turnout on Thursday. “You see they never thought this many people would turn out in the heat like this,” said a 45-year-old woman at the cemetery, where thick crowds of people chanted slogans deriding President Ahmadinejad as a dictator and calling on him to resign. “They can’t stop it now.”

On Thursday, Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president, became the latest prominent figure to speak out forcefully against prison deaths and abuses that occurred during the crackdown.

“Crimes have taken place and people have died,” Mr. Khatami told a group of lawmakers. “Our people, young women and men, have been treated in ways that if it had taken place in foreign prisons, everyone would be screaming that it must be confronted.”

Conservative figures in Parliament have made similar comments, and at least two investigations of the prison abuses are underway. A number of senior hard-line figures attended a mourning service on Tuesday for one of those who died in prison, Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of an adviser to Mohsen Rezai, a conservative presidential candidate, the Tabnak Web site reported.

On Thursday the government made another conciliatory gesture, moving Saeed Hajjarian, a prominent reformist who is seriously ill, from prison to a “state-owned” house with proper medical facilities, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. Two other detainees, a political activist and a journalist, were also released, opposition Web sites reported.

Public anger is rising at a difficult time for Mr. Ahmadinejad, who won the election on June 12 in a landslide that opposition supporters say was rigged. This month Mr. Ahmadinejad refused a direct order from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to drop a contested cabinet appointment. That provoked many hard-liners, who have warned that he may not last as president if he does not show more respect for the revered Ayatollah Khamenei. The deputy ultimately withdrew, but Mr. Ahmadinejad then named him chief of staff. Some on both sides of Iran’s political divide have linked the prison abuse to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s flouting of Ayatollah Khamenei’s authority, hinting that a broader lack of accountability is the problem. Lawmakers have complained that they were not given access to the those arrested after the election, who are widely believed to be under the control of the Revolutionary Guards. Many in the opposition say the election amounted to a coup by the guards, where Mr. Ahmadinejad spent formative years.

“This is the only way that we can stop everything from falling into the hands of the Revolutionary Guards,” said a 29-year-old physiotherapist who came to the cemetery. “You see, now they don’t even take notice of the clerics, it’s gone that far.”

The mourning ceremony quickly turned into a tense standoff between the police and opposition supporters. At one point, mourners gathered around Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist cleric and presidential candidate. The police surrounded them, apparently trying to intimidate Mr. Karroubi, who spoke to the crowd without a megaphone.

A police officer raising his baton to disperse protesters at an opposition rally at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery outside Tehran on Thursday.

Later, after Mr. Moussavi was denied entry by the police, mourners began chanting angry slogans, and the police charged with their batons, leaving many people bruised and bleeding. A number of people were arrested, including two prominent filmmakers, Jafar Panahi and Mahnaz Mohammadi, Web sites reported.

“I was telling them not to beat this girl — she was on the ground — and then they hit me on the legs,” said a 45-year-old woman, who was sitting on the grass, recovering. “If only these dead would rise up and help us.”

Later, many of the mourners headed to central Tehran to regroup at the Grand Mossalah, a vast prayer hall. But the police had closed the station that is nearest the hall, witnesses said. Instead, the mourners got off one stop before the station, and were met by riot police officers wearing protective gear and clutching bulletproof shields. The police charged at the protesters, scattering them, witnesses said. Similar confrontations took place throughout the evening as protesters gathered in Vanak Square and other places. As in earlier protests, young women were often at the forefront, hurling rocks at riot police officers and shouting in their faces.

“It is clear from the number of people that they have not felt intimidated by the arrests and killings,” one witness said. “The crowd is still as large as it was weeks ago, and you see people from all classes and ages.”

Robert F. Worth reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto.

(International Campaign for Human Rights | 30 July 2009) – Thousands of people gathered to commemorate the fortieth day of Neda Agha Soltan’s killing and to mourn all other recent deaths at Behesht Zahra Cemetery today. The peaceful gathering was attacked violently by Special Guards and plain-clothes Basij agents, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said. Security forces also prevented Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi from participating in the memorial services. Neda’s mother, Hajer Rostami Motlagh, who had previously announced her intention to go to her daughter’s grave for the memorial service, announced last night that for unspecified reasons she and her family had cancelled their plan to go to Behesht Zahra.

The Campaign has learned that Neda’s mother, who goes to the site of her shooting every Thursday to light a candle in memorial, did not go there either today. Instead, she went to a park near her house and lit candles in her memory (see pictures).

During the past few weeks, families of the dead who are receiving their bodies, some many weeks after the killings without any explanation, have attempted to arrange memorial services. Many had planned to join Neda’s fortieth day anniversary to combine these memorial services. Moussavi and Karrubi had applied for a permit to hold funeral services, without any chanting or speeches, but the Interior Ministry refused to issue a permit. The two reformist politicians had announced they would participate in Neda’s memorial service at Behest Zahra.

According to eyewitness accounts reported to the Campaign, security and police forces surrounded and occupied the grounds of Behesht Zahra in large numbers hours before the participants arrived there. Using threats and force, the government forces attempted to turn back the crowds converging on Behesht Zahra.

At 2 p.m. Tehran time, security forces detained Jaafar Panahi, a well-known filmmaker, his wife and daughter, and three older women who were accompanying them. As the crowds increased, thousands of people managed to arrive at section 257 of Behesht Zahra, where Neda and other recently killed protestors are buried. Around 7 p.m. Basij and plain-clothes agents violently attacked the mourners, using tear gas and beating the crowds with batons.

“It is not acceptable to kill people’s children, and then without accountability, use every possible means to pressure the victims’ families into silence and even deprive them of holding a simple funeral service for their loved ones,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the Campaign’s spokesperson.

“The participation of large crowds in Behesht Zahra showed that the families and general public are insistent on exercising their very basic and fundamental rights. The authorities, instead of expanding on their criminal actions by relying on more violence, should hear the call of the people for accountability,” he added.

Noting the extensive human rights violations and criminal acts by government and government-supported forces, the Campaign continues to call on the United Nations to send a special committee of human rights experts headed by the Secretary General to Iran to demand an immediate end to violence and investigate the fate of hundreds of disappeared, detained, and killed people during recent events.