Hours later, Mousavi was said to have been arrested as he sought a
meeting with Khamenei.
Iranian sources said former President Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani resigned from all of his official positions in protest
against the results of the election. Rafsanjani had been a leading adviser
to Khamenei.
"I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade," Mousavi,
67, said. "The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardize
the pillars of the Islamic republic and will establish tyranny."
Clashes throughout Iran erupted in wake of the June 12 presidential
elections, which garnered a record 85 percent turnout. The 52-year-old
Ahmadinejad, who faced three opponents, was declared the winner, with 62.5
percent of the vote. Opposition groups have charged that the election was
rife with fraud.
"The security forces will stop all illegal acts," an Iranian police
statement said on June 13.
The protests were deemed among the largest since the Islamic revolution
in Iran in 1979. Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei warned the defeated
candidates to restrain their supporters.
"The chosen and respected president is the president of all the Iranian
nation and everyone, including yesterday's competitors, must unanimously
support and help him," Khamenei said.
Opposition sources said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps played
a leading role in mobilizing voters for Ahmadinejad, a former IRGC
commander. The sources said IRGC and Basij officers hampered the campaign by
Ahmedinejad rivals and intimidated those who counted the votes.
"Police are not confronting people but only those who are disturbing
public order or who make damage to public places," Tehran's deputy police
chief Mohsen Khancharli said.
