TEHRAN: Thousands of supporters of Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi marched in Tehran yesterday following a disputed poll prompting the biggest street protests since the 1979 revolution.
On a fourth day of demonstrations since Friday’s election, witnesses said they headed — largely in silence — toward the state television building, despite Mousavi’s call for them to call off a planned rally.
In what appeared to be a first concession by authorities to the protest movement in the world’s fifth-biggest oil exporter, Iran’s top legislative body said it was prepared for a partial recount but ruled out annulling the poll.
The decision was taken by the 12-man Guardian Council following the election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway winner. A spokesman for the Guardian Council, which groups preachers and Islamic law experts as a constitutional watchdog, said that it was “ready to recount the disputed ballot boxes claimed by some candidates, in the presence of their representatives.”
“It is possible that there may be some changes in the tally after the recount,” spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said. “Based on the law, the demand of those candidates for the cancellation of the vote — this cannot be considered,” he told television.
In an apparent attempt to deny the opposition the chance to keep up the momentum of mass street protests here, Ahmadinejad’s supporters mobilized thousands of demonstrators in central Tehran where Mousavi’s supporters had planned to gather.
The Mousavi supporters marching yesterday said they planned to assemble in front of the state television IRIB building in northern Tehran. Witnesses said some supporters had already gathered close to the building, which was ringed by riot police.
Wearing wristbands and ribbons in his green campaign colors, Mousavi supporters carried his picture and made victory signs. Some were sending messages to others to meet again today for a rally at Tehran’s central Haft-e-Tir Square.
As a column of riot police moved up the capital’s most famous boulevard, tree-lined Vali-ye Asr Avenue, demonstrators clapped their hands in defiance. Traffic was blocked on the avenue and at one point about 100 protesters sat on the road.
Unlike Monday’s vast opposition march in central Tehran, in which seven people were killed, the demonstrators largely refrained from chanting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans.
State television said the “main agents” in post-election unrest had been arrested with explosives and guns. Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said his ministry was chasing two types of people over the unrest. “One wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror, and in this connection 50 people were arrested and more than 20 explosive consignments were discovered. They were supported from outside the country,” he told state radio.
“The second category was made up of counterrevolutionary groups who had penetrated election headquarters (of election candidates) ... Some 26 such elements have been arrested,” he added.
Illustrating Iran’s sensitivity to world opinion, authorities yesterday banned foreign journalists from leaving their offices to cover street protests.
Iran summoned the British and Czech diplomats to protest against the reaction from London and the European Union to the unrest. The ISNA news agency reported that the Foreign Ministry, in a meeting with ambassador Simon Lawrence Gass, condemned “the unconventional and impolite remarks” by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Minister David Miliband.
