Iranian cleric predicts opposition will topple Ahmadinejad
His newspaper was shut down Monday, and generals and hard-line clerics have called for him to be put on trial. Yet defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi says opposition to the government is growing by the day.
The white-turbaned Shiite cleric, who has held several senior government positions since the 1979 Islamic revolution, said in an interview Tuesday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with the clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders who support him, will be defeated by what he describes as a burgeoning movement of ordinary people, ayatollahs and lawmakers.
“In the streets, in the bazaars, at weddings and in mosques, everywhere you can hear people complaining about what has happened” since Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection June 12, Karroubi said. “This belief is growing at an extraordinary pace. Yes, people might be more cautious, since the situation in our country is dangerous, but their thoughts, their ideas have not changed.” [continued…]
Moussavi claims government link to rapes
The opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi on Tuesday accused “establishment agents” of raping and torturing prisoners, adding a prominent voice to critics who had made the charge and openly defying hard-liners who had denounced the claims as slander.
“Those who committed the crimes were establishment agents,” Mr. Moussavi said in a statement posted on his Web site.
He said “the use of force and money” could not silence the accusations, but only a “quick, open and precise investigation of complaints by detained protesters and their families.” [continued…]
