Iran blames foreign govts for killings during riot
Iran yesterday lashed out at foreign governments, accusing them of complicity in crimes and killings in the aftermath of the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The fresh anti-West salvo by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki comes a day after violent clashes between thousands of mourners and riot police in central Tehran and as the Islamic republic prepares to put around 30 protesters on trial on charges of rioting and vandalism.
"Western and European countries, with their overt and covert capabilities, interfered in Iran's election... the worst among them being Britain," Mottaki was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster's website.
"The countries who interfered through their television networks by telling how to instigate riots, build explosives and other tension creating activities are accomplices in all the committed crimes, murders and are held responsible."
Iran has consistently blamed foreign countries, especially Western and European nations, for fuelling the post-election violence in Tehran in which officials say about 30 people died and several hundred were wounded.
Tehran has particularly targetted London and had detained nine local employees of the British embassy for their alleged role in the violence that broke out following the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad.
The embassy staff were later released.
The ISNA news agency, meanwhile, said "about 30" people will be put on trial in a revolutionary court on Saturday alleged to have "participated in riots" and accused of "acting against national security, disturbing public order and vandalising public and government property."
It added without elaborating, that several of the accused are alleged to have links with Mohareb (enemies of God) groups.
Some 2,000 protestors, political activists, reformists and journalists were initially detained as authorities cracked down on opposition groups protesting the victory of Ahmadinejad, whom they say won only due to massive rigging of votes.
Most of the detainees have been released but about 250 remain behind bars and their continued detention has become a rallying point for the anti-Ahmadinejad movement.
The Islamic republic is engulfed in its worst crisis in its 30-year existence as anti-Ahmadinejad groups led by former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi refuse to acknowledge his victory in the June 12 poll and regularly launch protests.
In the latest opposition show of force, thousands of people mourning the slain protestors clashed with riot police at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery and in central Tehran on Thursday, witnesses said.
They said riot police hit mourners with batons and belts at the defiant graveside commemoration at the cemetery south of Tehran as they marked the 40th day since the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who came to symbolise the public uprising over Ahmadinejad's victory.
A graphic Internet video of Neda bleeding to death was seen around the world and triggered an outcry over the sometimes brutal crackdown on demonstrators.
Police forced Mousavi out of the graveyard minutes after his arrival but although they initially surrounded fellow campaigner Mehdi Karroubi, he was able to give graveside readings from the Koran.
Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, Iran's hardline cleric and head of the Guardians Council, the powerful electoral watchdog which upheld Ahmadinejad's victory, on Friday blamed Mousavi and Karroubi for the deaths of the protesters.
"You led people to this path and now you go and read the Koran (at the graveyard)," he said in his Friday prayer address.
"Yes, go and apologise to them (protestors) and tell them that we started a mutiny but you were killed. Accept this blame, because if there were no riots, nobody would have died."
He, however, said that those prisoners who were innocent must be freed.
"I feel that if a prisoner is not guilty, he should not stay in the prison even for a moment and be freed immediately," Janati said, adding the June vote was the "healthiest" in history of the Islamic republic.
Another top Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, said the key to restoring calm in the country was to free all those rounded up in the aftermath of the mass demonstrations.
"In order to bring calm to society, the fate of prisoners must be decided as soon as possible," Shirazi was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency.
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