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Mousavi supporters chant 'death to dictator'

Members of reformist camp in Iran hold ceremony to express their gratitude to activists who took part in anti-election protest. Videos posted on Web show participants lashing out at President Ahmadinejad

Dozens of supporters of Iranian reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi gathered Sunday in a square in the southwest city of Shiraz in order to protest against the results of the June 12 presidential elections.

 

Videos posted on the Internet showed the protestors chanting "death to the dictator".

 

Many of the rally's participants were activists in the election headquarters of Mousavi and the other reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi.

 

During the rally, the reformist camp members held a ceremony in which they expressed their gratitude to the activists who took part in the wave of protests which swept Iran after the elections.

 

The ceremony, which was held in a local cultural center in Shiraz, was approved by the authorities, most likely after its organizers agreed not to make it public. Nonetheless, dozens of people arrived at the center.

 

According to various reports, there were no clashes between the participants and the security forces, and no protestors were arrested, the activists sang songs in support of the protest movement and its leader Mousavi.

 

'Hope to reform the Islamic republic'

According to a report on an Iranian opposition website, the ceremony's participants read a thank you letter to the activists from Mousavi, who was not present at the ceremony.

 

"The post-election events did not leave a chance to thank you for you activities in the past few months," the reformist leader wrote. He added that "our effort was not only for the election of one person, but was carried out with the hope of reforming the Islamic republic in order to remove the weaknesses of this regime."

 

Last month's elections sent Iran into a serious political crisis, with masses of people taking to the streets in order to express their protest against the vote's results. The results showed that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been reelected, but Mousavi and Karroubi claimed that the elections were forged and that Ahmadinejad's government was "illegitimate".

 

The protest led to violent riots, described as the most serious in the country since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, in which dozens of people were killed and hundreds arrested. Most of those detained have been released by now.

 


פרסום ראשון: 07.20.09, 08:03
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