Moussavi rejects partial vote recount
Iranian demonstrators hold placards during a protest against the results of the recent presidential election and in support defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Ankara on Saturday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again slammed US President Barack Obama for "interfering" in Iran, as debate over the Iranian president's disputed re-election showed no sign of abating.Photo: AFP
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi Saturday refused to support a panel set up by the electoral watchdog Guardian Council to conduct a partial recount of votes in the disputed presidential election, a media report said.
Refusing to be cowed by attacks on his party offices, Moussavi again demanded for fresh polls.
"Limiting the probe into complaints about electoral irregularities to recounting 10 percent of the ballot boxes cannot attract people's trust and convince public opinion about the results," Moussavi said on his campaign website.
Moussavi said: "Reaching a just judgment is not within the domain of the Guardians Council and above all a board which is appointed by this council. I insist again on cancelling the election (results) as the most suitable way out of the problem," Geo TV said citing Moussavi.
The issue should be referred to a body which observes (Islamic) Sharia law, has legal status and is independent, said the former prime minister, who trailed in 11 million votes behind incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to official results from the June 12 election.
The Guardian Council said that although it has ordered a partial recount, no 'major irregularities' have so far been found and the elections were the 'cleanest we have had'.
Earlier Iran has shut down opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's website that was the only source for US officials to monitor events in the Islamic country, according to a media report Saturday.
State Department officials, who have been monitoring events in Iran from Dubai via Mousavi's website 'Kalemah', said the website - the opposition leader's last link to the outside world - was completely shut down, the Fox News reported
The officials also noted reports on Iranian websites alleging that Mousavi's supporters, who have been in jailed for anti-government protests, were being tortured in a bid to force them into 'confessions' on TV that the demonstrations were part of a foreign plot against the Islamic regime, the report said.
It also cited a report by Iranian newspaper with close ties with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that called on the country's justice minister to prosecute Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi for allegedly violating Islamic and constitutional law through her human rights advocacy.
Since the June 12 presidential election results, which saw incumbent president Mahmoud Ahamadinejad retaining power with a landslide victory, were out Mausavi's supporters took to streets in thousands to protest the alleged electoral fraud.
Iranian authorities have used a combination of warnings, arrests and the threat of police action over the last week to drive mass rallies off Tehran's street with smaller gatherings dispersed with tear gas and baton charges.
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