Reformists resist Iranian government pressure

A group of clerics from Qom, a city known as a center of scholarship for Shiite Islam south of Tehran, issued a statement earlier last week in support of Mousavi. The statement urged religious leaders to back Mousavi supporters, and urged religious leaders to "oppose oppressors and aid oppressed" people.

It said that the reputations of the government and the religious establishment are simultaneously jeopardized because, in Iran, "if people find the system opposed to them, they will consider clerics to be against them, too."

Iranian officials, however, have resisted calls for a new vote, dismissing allegations of fraud and calling the elections "pure" and "healthy" following the supreme leader's declaration that the results would stand. They have also said Mousavi's supporters were operating at the behest of foreign powers — namely Britain and the United States.

Officials had detained nine Iranians working at the British Embassy in Tehran, accusing them of fomenting unrest. All but one have been released.

The one still being held, identified by his lawyer as Hossein Rassam, a political analyst at the embassy, was charged with harming Iran's national security, his lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshi, said Saturday.

The crackdown has spread to top opposition leaders, as well, with about a dozen detained since the protests began, said lawyer Saleh Nikbakht, who represents a number of them.

The semiofficial news agency Fars reported last week that prominent reformer, former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, had "confessed that he has provoked people and students to anarchy and riots and velvet revolution."

Abtahi was a vice president under Khatami. Fars did not give further details about what punishment Abtahi could face or about their confessions.

Their families have rejected the charges as baseless saying confessions obtained under pressure were worthless.

Police say more than a thousand people have been detained in total and 20 "rioters" killed during the violence. Eight members of the paramilitary Basij militia tasked with putting down the protests have also been killed.

Some human rights groups have raised concerns that people detained in the postelection turmoil could be forced into making bogus confessions under torture or other duress.

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