Ahmadinejad supporters stage anti-opposition rally in Tehran

Dec 18, 2009

Tehran - Thousands of supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday staged a protest rally against the opposition following reports that pictures of the country's supreme religious leaders had been allegedly burned by opposition supporters.

The crowd, which staged the rallies after the Friday prayer ceremony in central Tehran, shouted '[the] deadline is over,' called for the death of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi and the execution of members of his Green Movement.

The opposition has been accused of having burned and torn to pieces pictures of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late supreme leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution, and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, on Wednesday warned the opposition of possible legal action for slander against the state.

Ahmadinejad has called his opponents enemies of Iran and agents of foreign countries.

Reformist websites speculated that Moussavi may be arrested after the alleged picture burning but so far no arrest has taken place.

The opposition is led by former premier Moussavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the two ex-presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

They and their supporters accuse the government of fraud in the June 12 election and have refused to acknowledge Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Thousands of students, dissidents, journalists and even former reformist government officials have been arrested following protests. More than 100 are still in jail and some of them have been sentenced to long jail terms, five of them even to death.

The pro-Ahmadinejad wing, however, says that the opposition has so far failed to present any proof of the election fraud and should therefore respect both the election results and Ahmadinejad's presidency.