Clashes in Tehran as Hashemi Rafsanjani warns regime

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/17/iran-hashemi-rafsanjani-islamic-republic

guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 July 2009 21.57 BST

Iranian riot police used batons and teargas today to break up defiant protests after prayers in Tehran, where Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country's most powerful clerics, warned that the regime was "in crisis" and urged a release of prisoners detained in post-election unrest.

Rafsanjani, a bitter rival of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke his month-long silence to issue a stark warning that the Islamic Republic had lost popular support. His carefully crafted address stopped short of directly attacking Khamenei or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose victory in June's presidential poll has been widely denounced as a fraud. But its message was still strong.