Thousands of pro-Mousavi supporters gathered at the Ghoba mosque in Tehran for “Hafte Tir,” to commemorate a 1981 bombing that lead to the death of the then Secretary General of the Islamic Republican Party, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti and 70 Iranian parliamentary members.
The commemoration, which is recognized annually, was organized by pro-Mousavi supporters and banned by Iranian authorities as reported by the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), with preventative measures taken to keep the supporters from entering the mosque, said several witnesses.
One supporter amongst a crowd that approached the mosque from a side street was stopped several blocks away.
“There were guards around at every street leading to the mosque. There were guards blocking people to go there and people were complaining that they can’t go [to the mosque],” said one eyewitness on condition of anonymity.
“I could hear slogans coming from the mosque outside; not many people dared to say much. There were many guards, all of them armed and holding batons.”
Several witnesses said most of the people who attempted to go to the gathering were stopped by military forces on the surrounding streets, and were forced to leave and head home.
Others who became loud amid the silent gathering were taken away by security forces.
Despite the security forces blocking the pro-Mousavi supporters from reaching the mosque, amateur video circulated on the Internet shows some demonstrators chanting slogans in the surrounding streets. The vidoes also show reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi attending the commemoration.
Iranians could be heard once again chanting “God is great” into the night.
Anti-British and American Rhetoric
Several key officials within the Islamic Regime have spoken publicly the last several days accusing the British and the U.S. of meddling in Iranian affairs in an attempt to shift focus away from the brutal violence used by the Basiji and security forces against pro-Mousavi protestors.
The comments surfaced the middle of last week and continued leading to the weekend, as nine staff members of the British Embassy were detained for what officials from the Iranian Regime cited as participating in post-election protests.
Mousavi Rejects Partial Vote Recount
Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi rejected the Guardian Council’s proposal on Saturday for a partial recount of presidential ballots with election results suspected of being falsified.
The Guardian Council is Iran’s highest legislative body which also oversees the election.
The presidential election, which took place June 12, had determined incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the winner by a wide margin.
These results were strongly disputed by reformist candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi who claim the results were rigged.
The Council’s proposal included a recount of ten percent of the ballots.
Mousavi rejected the proposal in a letter to the Guardian Council published on ghalamnews.ir, his official news organization, stating that an annulment would be the only reasonable solution.
“As it was told before to the Council, the volume of violations and acts against the law [in regards to the presidential elections are] in four groups:
a. Actions and campaigns before the Election Day,
b. The voting process and the vote count,
c. Summation and announcement of the voting results,
d. Actions after the election and the announcement of the election results,
…are such that there is no other solution than the annulment of the election and holding a new one.”
Mousavi went on to outline the categorized alleged violations, which include not letting candidate representatives inspect the ballot boxes to ensure they’re empty before the election, and a shortage of ballots, although 12 million extra ballots had been printed.
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