Tehran, August 28: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Friday for the prosecution of the country’s opposition leaders for organizing the protests against alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential elections.
“I ask the judiciary that the main legal action should be against the [opposition] leaders and those who directed the recent unrest following the election,” Ahmadinejad said at the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad was referring to defeated presidential candidates former premier Mir-Hossein Moussavi and former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi as well as former presidents Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who are the main leaders of the opposition.
Opposition supporters, who have not yet acknowledged Ahmadinejad’s re-election, have staged street demonstrations against Ahmadinejad, protesting the alleged vote rigging in favour of the incumbent.
“There should be no immunity for these leaders,” added the president, who spoke before the main sermon.
The crowd at the prayer ceremony approved Ahmadinejad’s demand, shouting “the leaders of the unrest should be executed.”
More than 20 demonstrators were killed – the opposition says there were 69 – in the unrest following the election and more than 4,000 people were arrested of whom more than 100 – the opposition says more than 200 – are still in jail and charged with planning to topple the Islamic system.
Ahmadinejad and his camp blame the opposition and especially its leaders for the political crisis following the unrest and the casualties and say the leaders should be punished.
The presidential camp has also accused the opposition leaders of being linked to foreign countries, an allegation the opposition groups categorically rejected.
Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who backs Ahmadinejad, has said that no accusations should be made in this regard without having sufficient documents to prove the allegations.
The opposition has also accused the security forces of torturing and even raping some of the post-vote detainees.
A special parliamentary commission in charge of the detainees has categorically denied the charges and said no one was raped but did confirm physical abuses in prison.
Ahmadinejad confirmed the physical abuses in prison but said that this was another conspiracy against the establishment and accused opposition elements of being responsible for the abuses.
“This was a scenario by the enemy and there are documents available that our disciplinary and security forces were in no way involved in these bitter incidents but some elements who had infiltrated the system,” Ahmadinejad said.
The president gave no further details about the infiltrators but just said that they did not only harm the prisoners but also tarnished the image of the Islamic republic.
Ahmadinejad once again decried what he called “Western plots” against Iran and accused the West – namely Britain – of having planned to topple the Islamic system.
The president said that he had a message “by a foreign minister of a friendly country” telling him about his meeting with “the foreign minister of the old fox (Great Britain)” who said that this time the planning was precise and that the Iranian system would collapse.
“But eventually also this plot failed and the enemies of Iran were once again slapped in the face,” the president said.
Ahmadinejad reiterated that the West wanted to take revenge on him for his antagonistic policies in the last four years but after their plots to remove the government failed in the election, the Western leaders got angry.
“I just tell the West to stay angry and die of this anger,” the president said.
“The slap in the face by the Iranian nation made the West so dazed that their leaders cannot even find their way back home,” he added.
Ahmadinejad further said that in his second presidential term, starting in mid-September after approval of his new cabinet by parliament, “Iran would adopt a much tougher approach towards the West.”
Referring to Western demands from Iran to suspend its controversial nuclear programmes, the president reiterated that Iran would not retreat one step and decisively pursue its rights regardless of Western threats of sanctions.
–Agencies