New Revolution in Iran? Ayatollah Khamenei Losing Grip; Mousavi: "This is a dangerous Charade"

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Thousands of people clashed with police Saturday after the disputed election victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked the biggest protests in Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranians to respect Ahmadinejad's victory in an presidential election that his closest challenger described as a "dangerous charade."

Ahmadinejad's triumph in Friday's vote upset expectations that reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi might win the race.

Thousands of Mousavi supporters took part in the protests, some chanting, "What happened to our vote?." Others chanted anti-Ahmadinejad slogans, bringing traffic to a standstill. "We are Iranians too," and "Mousavi is our president," they shouted.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, an Ahmadinejad ally, declared the president had been re-elected to a second four-year term with 62.6 percent of the vote, against 33.7 percent for Mousavi, in a record 85 percent turnout.

Mousavi protested against what he called violations and vote-rigging during the election -- allegations rejected by interior ministry officials.

He also said members of his election headquarters had been beaten "with batons, wooden sticks and electrical rods."

In one incident police on motorcycles beat Mousavi backers who were staging a sit-in protest at the capital's Vanak square.

At Tehran University, some 100 police with helmets and shields used tear and pepper gas as they chased 300-400 students. Shops in the area were closed and small fires were burning on the street.

Khamenei, Iran's top authority, told defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid "provocative behavior."

"The chosen and respected president is the president of all the Iranian nation and everyone, including yesterday's competitors, must unanimously support and help him," Khamenei said in a statement read on state television.

Ahmadinejad, in a televised address to the nation, said the election had been "free and healthy."

Saying that "people voted for my policies," he said that, "everybody should respect people's votes."

Mousavi, a veteran of the 1979 Islamic revolution, protested against what he said were many obvious election violations.

"I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardize the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny," Mousavi said in a statement made available to Reuters.

Mousavi urged senior clerics in Iran's Shi'ite religious center of Qom to speak out.

"Today all the ways to preserve our rights are closed. Silence of the ulema and grand ayatollahs may create more harm than fixing voting," he said in a statement on his website.

Saturday, Iran's students' news agency ISNA quoted Tehran's Deputy Prosecutor General Mahmoud Salarkia as saying 10 people had been detained for "agitating public opinion through websites and blogs by propagating untruthful reports."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090613/ts_nm/us_iran_election_48