Backers of Iran’s Mousavi plan more protests

Tehran, June 17: Supporters of Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi aim to keep pressure up with new protests on Wednesday over a disputed poll which has led to the biggest upheaval since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Despite the authorities’ readiness for a partial recount, Mousavi’s backers plan a fifth day of demonstrations since Friday’s poll in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially declared to have won a resounding victory.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who has sought to engage Iran and asked its leadership to “unclench its fist”, said protests in the world’s fifth-biggest oil exporter showed the “Iranian people are not convinced with the legitimacy of the election”.

Seven people were killed in a big opposition protest on Monday in central Tehran, state media said, and Mousavi urged his followers to call off a planned rally in the same area the following day.

Tens of thousands of pro-Mousavi demonstrators marched instead on Tuesday in northern Tehran and many of them to the state television IRIB building, which was ringed by riot police, witnesses said.

Wearing wristbands and ribbons in his green campaign colours, they carried his picture and made victory signs. Some were sending messages to others to meet again on Wednesday for a rally at Tehran’s central Haft-e Tir Square.

“Where is our vote?” read one placard at the rally. “A new greeting to the world,” said another beneath a picture of the bespectacled and bearded 67-year-old Mousavi.

–Agencies