TEHRAN (AFP) — Defeated challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed on Thursday to resist what he said he was huge pressure to end his campaign to overturn Iran's presidential election.
Ignoring an international outcry over the post-election unrest gripping Iran, victorious incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told US counterpart Barack Obama to stop meddling in the affairs of the Islamic republic.
But a top dissident cleric warned Iran's rulers that their suppression of opposition protests could threaten the very foundations of the Islamic regime, which is grappling with the biggest upheaval since the 1979 revolution.
Mousavi insisted he would not be cowed by threats but said he was under pressure to withdraw his demand that the authorities cancel the results of an election he says was a "shameful fraud" marred by widespread irregularities.
"I won't refrain from securing the rights of the Iranian people ... because of personal interests and the fear of threats," the one-time premier said in a statement on his newspaper website, Kalemeh.
"My access to people is completely restricted," he said, complaining about restrictions such as the closure of newspapers and problems at his websites.
Reports on Thursday said authorities had rounded up more than 140 Mousavi supporters, political activists, journalists and university lecturers since the disputed election.
Eight members of Iran's Basij Islamic militia are among 20 people who have been killed in the violence that erupted after the June 12 election, state-owned English-language Press TV said on its website.
Other state media previously said 17 civilians had died but there is no independent confirmation of the toll, as foreign media are barred from the streets.
Iran is blaming Western powers for stoking the unrest, with the regime insisting it will not back down over the vote and the regime's security forces moving swiftly to crush any public protests.
"I hope you (Obama) will avoid interfering in Iran's affairs," Ahmadinejad said, accusing the US leader of using words similar to those of his predecessor George W. Bush, who took a hard line against the Islamic republic.
President Obama has made diplomatic overtures towards Iran, after three decades of severed ties and a standoff with the international community over Tehran's nuclear drive.
But he has been increasingly critical of the election's conduct and said he was "appalled and outraged" at the crackdown on protesters.
On Thursday, the White House accused Ahmadinejad of trying to scapegoat the United States for Iran's political crisis.
But Russia, which has refused to criticise Iran over the post-election violence, took issue with Western governments as foreign ministers of the Group of Eight most industrialised nations gathered in Italy.
"Isolating Iran is the wrong approach," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The Iranian president also took aim at Britain, saying it and other European countries were led by "a bunch of politically retarded people."
Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday that he was considering reviewing ties with Britain after the two countries expelled diplomats in tit-for-tat moves.
Iran has expelled the correspondent for the BBC in Tehran, accusing him of "supporting the rioters" and has also arrested a British-Greek and a Iranian-Canadian journalist working for US publications.
The authorities have also spoken of arresting many hundreds of protestors over the unrest, including some people it said had British passports.
Ahmadinejad's latest remarks came after the United States said it would no longer issue invitations for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 Independence Day parties at US embassies.
Dissent is growing among top figures in Iran, with Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri issuing a new warning to the clerical regime.
"If Iranians cannot talk about their legitimate rights at peaceful gatherings and are instead suppressed, complexities will build up which could possibly uproot the foundations of the government, no matter how powerful," Montazeri said in a statement to AFP.
Once tipped as a possible successor to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, he called for an "impartial" committee to be set up to resolve the crisis.
At the same time, conservative parliament speaker Ali Larijani and more than 100 MPs stayed away from a victory dinner hosted by Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, press reports said.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has insisted he will not back down over the vote, but has extended until Monday a probe into the election results by the election supervisory body the Guardians Council.
In the face of the crackdown, Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist parliament speaker who came a distant fourth in the election, cancelled a mourning ceremony on Thursday but plans to hold it next week, his party website said.
A large force of riot police and Basij militiamen stopped a crowd of several hundred people trying to assemble outside parliament on Wednesday, according to a witness.
Despite the restrictions on foreign media, images of police brutality have spread worldwide via amateur video over the Internet.
Mousavi has urged supporters to continue protesting but to show restraint to avoid bloodshed, with all opposition demonstrations banned by the authorities.
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