Iran’s top leader warns of protest crackdown

UPDATED:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader sternly warned Friday of a crackdown if protesters continue their massive street rallies, escalating the government’s showdown with demonstrators demanding a new presidential election.

In his first response to a week of protests of the disputed election, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said opposition leaders “will be held accountable for all the violence, bloodshed and rioting” if they do not halt the rallies.

Khamenei also said the balloting had not been rigged, and he sided with hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, offering no concessions to the opposition. He effectively ruled out any chance for a new vote, lauding the June 12 election as an expression of the people’s will.

“Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory,” Khamenei said at a Friday prayer service at Tehran University attended by tens of thousands of people. “It is your victory. They cannot manipulate it.”

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The speech created a stark choice for candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters: Drop their demands for a new vote or take to the streets again in blatant defiance of the man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran’s constitution.

Pro-Mousavi Web sites had no immediate reaction to Khamenei’s warning. They did not announce changes in plans for a march at 4 p.m. Saturday from Revolution Square to Freedom Square, site of a massive rally Monday that ended with fatal clashes between protesters and a pro-government militia.

“We are all feel a little angry, worried and disappointed after the speech,” said one Mousavi supporter, responding by e-mail to The Associated Press.

“We are waiting for Mousavi’s reaction. He is our hope to protect our votes,” added the Tehran resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation.

Monday’s demonstration was followed by three consecutive days of protest that have posed the greatest challenge to Iran’s Islamic ruling system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power.

So far, the government has not stopped the protests with force despite an official ban on them. But Khamenei opened the door for harsher measures.

“It must be determined at the ballot box what the people want and what they don’t want, not in the streets,” he said. “I call on all to put an end to this method.”

And Khamenei added, according to Press TV, Iranian state television’s English-language channel: “Extremism in the country, any extremist move, will fan another extremist move. If the political elite want to ignore the law or break the law then they are taking wrong measures, which are harmful, and they will be held accountable for all the violence, bloodshed and rioting.”

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