Iran reform leader calls election illegitimate

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.

Iran's embattled opposition leader urged his supporters Wednesday to keep working for "the rights of the people" in his first rallying cry since the regime validated the results of the country's disputed presidential election.

In a fresh show of defiance, Mir Hossein Mousavi reasserted his claim that the June 12 election was illegitimate, and he demanded that Iran's cleric-led government release all political prisoners and institute electoral reforms and press freedoms.

"It's not yet too late," Mousavi, who has slipped from public view in recent days, said in a lengthy statement posted on his Web site. "It's our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people."

Mousavi also called for a return to a more "honest" political environment in the Islamic Republic.

His latest challenge came as Iran's feared Basij militia asked the chief prosecutor to investigate Mousavi for his role in violent protests that it said undermined national security.

The semiofficial Fars news agency said the militia — known as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's street enforcers — sent the prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offenses against the state, including "disturbing the nation's security," which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.

Iran's regime says 17 protesters and eight Basiji were killed in two weeks of unrest that followed the election. Mousavi insists the vote was tainted by massive fraud and that he — not incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — is the rightful winner.

The powerful Guardian Council, Iran's top electoral oversight body, pronounced the election results valid earlier this week — paving the way for Ahmadinejad to be sworn in later this month for a second four-year term.

"Whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Mousavi in many areas supervised or assisted in punishable acts," said the Basij letter, which also accused Mousavi of bringing "pessimism" into the public sphere.