<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> WorldTribune.com: Mobile Ñ Iran post-vote crackdown: Meetings, Internet, text messages, cell phones

Iran post-vote crackdown: Meetings, Internet, text messages, cell phones

Monday, June 15, 2009   E-Mail this story   Free Headline Alerts

NICOSIA Ñ Iran has launched a massive crackdown in wake of the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Teheran regime has banned all gatherings, including protests, amid unrest that stemmed from the reelection of Ahmadinejad. The regime also blocked the Internet and cellphone communications, particularly text messaging, a major link by opposition activists.

The protests against Ahmadinejad began in Teheran on June 13 when 3,000 supporters of reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi took to the streets and blocked traffic. Riot police, some of them in plainclothes, responded and began to beat the demonstrators, sparking clashes.

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.

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