Iran’s regime said it called a rally in Tehran for Friday to express “hatred” against the opposition movement, as its two key leaders launched fresh anti-government tirades despite demands they be hanged.
Yesterday’s call for the mass rally came as clashes erupted between regime backers and “apparent” supporters of the opposition at a funeral attended by thousands in Tehran of a student killed in anti-government protests of Monday.
“The noble people of Tehran will take to Enghelab Square after Friday prayers with their solid and informed presence,” the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council, which organises regime-backed programmes, said yesterday.
It said those joining the rally will “scream out their hatred, wrath and disgust against the savage crimes and evil movements of sedition leaders, their Monafeghin (hypocrites) and their monarchist allies.”
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been in the firing line since they called a rally on Monday in support of Arab uprisings but which quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and ended in clashes that left two people dead and several wounded.
Both are under de facto house arrest and Mr Karoubi’s son, Hossein, said yesterday, in a statement on his father’s Sahamnews.org website, that “security forces are currently occupying my house... after breaking into the building...they are searching my and my family’s personal belongings.”
Iranian officials accuse arch-foes the US, Britain and Israel of influencing the opposition chiefs.
In a statement carried by the ILNA news agency, Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body which selects the supreme leader, “condemned” the opposition protests and said the “leaders of sedition...best served America and the Zionist regime.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres meanwhile predicted that the Iranian people would bring down the Islamic regime as he denounced demands made Tuesday by Iranian lawmakers that Mousavi and Karroubi be hanged.
“The greatest political and moral corruption in the world is in Iran,” said Mr Peres at a conference in Jerusalem, describing it as “ugly” to see parliamentarians standing up and saying “kill the opposition.”
“Iran will be stopped by their own people. What the present Iranian leadership does is a shame on Iranian history, the Iranian culture, and the pain for their own people.”
Iran’s prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie warned that action would be taken against Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi.
“The heads of seditions are the people who should be punished for their criminal acts and God willing actions in this regard are being taken,” Mohseni Ejeie said, according to Fars news agency.