TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader issued a tough warning on Monday to the opposition to back down after former President Mohammad Khatami called for a referendum on the government’s legitimacy, a sign of the movement’s growing boldness in challenging the country’s rulers.
The exchanges between the opposition on one side and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his core of hard-line supporters on the other appeared to be heating up, reflecting how the month-long conflict over Iran’s disputed presidential election is entering a new level — a struggle within the leadership itself.
The opposition has been energized by a show of support last week from former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a key figure within the ruling hierarchy. On Monday, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi made some of his harshest comments yet at hard-liners and, implicitly, Khamenei himself.
Mousavi said they had insulted Iran’s people by claiming that the anger over June 12 presidential elections that exploded into massive protests was fueled by foreigners.
“You are facing something new: an awakened nation, a nation that has been born again and is here to defend its achievements,” Mousavi said during a meeting with families of those arrested in the postelection crackdown, in which he called for the detainees’ release. “Arrests ... won’t put an end to this problem. End this game as soon as possible and return to the nation its (arrested) sons.”
Khamenei addressed his comments to “the elite,” saying they should be careful in the positions they take on the issue and not do anything that will hurt Iran’s security, which he said would be “the biggest vice.”
“Anybody who drives the society toward insecurity and disorder is a hated person in the view of the Iranian nation, whoever he is,” Khamenei said during a speech on the occasion of a religious occasion.
On Sunday, leading reformist and former President Khatami called for a referendum on whether Ahmadinejad’s government is legitimate and for a neutral body to oversee the vote.
The proposal appeared to be an attempt by the opposition to put forward a concrete demand around which supporters can rally to press on the leadership.
