Mousavi out of sight

Mousavi out of sight

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says he was the true winner of the election. Iran's electoral commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner by a landslide, ignoring Mousavi's claims of widespread and systematic vote fraud. Mousavi has been out of sight in recent days, but a short message posted on his Web site asserted that "all the reports of violations in the elections will be published soon."

State TV reported that Ahmadinejad would be sworn in sometime between July 26 and Aug. 19.

Another opposition figure, reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, called for a day of mourning for at least 17 people killed in protests since the election. Some social networking sites suggested that the mourning would take place Thursday.

Amid the crackdown, there was one small concession Tuesday from Khamenei, whose word is law in the Islamic Republic. State TV said he agreed to extend by five days a deadline for registering complaints about the election.

Yet the regime made it clear that it stood by the results and there would be no rerun of the disputed vote.

State-run Press TV quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for Iran's top electoral body, the Guardian Council, as saying it found "no major fraud or breach in the election."

"Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place," he was quoted as saying.

On Monday, the council had acknowledged in a rare step that it found voting irregularities in 50 of 170 districts, including ballot counts that exceeded the number of eligible voters. Still, it said the discrepancies, involving some 3 million votes, were not widespread enough to affect the outcome.

Iran has 46.2 million eligible voters, one-third of them under 30. The final tally gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 percent to Mousavi, a landslide victory in a race that was perceived to be much closer. The huge margin went against the expectation that the record 85 percent turnout would help Mousavi.

Russia respects outcome

In a boost for the regime, Russia said Tuesday it respects the outcome. Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has longtime political and economic ties with Iran, where it is helping build a nuclear power plan at Bushehr. In his only trip abroad since the vote, Ahmadinejad went to Russia last week for a conference, where he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Meanwhile, Ebrahim Raisi, a top judicial official, said a special court has been set up to deal with detained protesters.

"Elements of riots must be dealt with to set an example. The judiciary will do that," he was quoted as saying by state-run radio. The judiciary is controlled by Iran's ruling clerics.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Rome, praised the courage of Iranian protesters "in facing bullets in the streets."

Two prominent Iranian opposition figures took their case to Europe on Tuesday.

Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi asked European Union officials in Brussels not to negotiate or hold meetings with Iranian leaders until the crackdown stops.

In Rome, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf said he had been asked by Mousavi aides to spread the word on what is happening in Iran. Makhmalbaf said that even if Ahmadinejad manages to govern for the next four years, "he will not have one day of quietness," with protesters resorting to general strikes and civil resistance.

A number of journalists have been detained since the protests began, although there have been conflicting accounts. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders put the figure of reporters detained at 34.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said 13 were in custody, including Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari. State-run TV confirmed the arrest of Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek national reporting for the Washington Times. 

msn.com