TIMES ONLINE: Iranian police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse thousands of demonstrators outside Tehran University today as a former president who is backing the opposition movement led Friday prayers for the first time since the disputed election.
Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the influential head of the Assembly of Experts and key supporter of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, called for prisoners to be released as he preached inside the campus that Iran was in crisis.
Demonstrators gathered at the university, which has been a regular focus of the protests, despite a violent crackdown by the authorities, only to be met by a wall of officers who have made at least 15 arrests according to a witness.
The former president’s sermon, broadcast live on state radio, was at one stage interrupted by slogans chanted by Mousavi supporters.
“I will talk about a solution for today’s situation, so that a way can be found to go ahead in the future with the same greatness, unity and consensus which we had in the beginning,” he said.
“Our key issue is to return the trust which the people had and now to some extent is broken ... It is not necessary that in this situation people be jailed. Let them join their families. We should not allow enemies to rebuke and ridicule us because of detentions. We should tolerate each other."
The opposition is seeking to show that their movement remains vibrant even after the repression that followed Iran’s discredited June 12 presidential election. >>> Nico Hines | Friday, July 17, 2009
