TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards, who helped quell protests after the June election, warned the opposition yesterday not to use anti-US rallies this week to stage new demonstrations.
Moderate opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi appeared to urge his supporters on Saturday to take to the streets on November 4, the 30th anniversary of the US embassy takeover in Tehran.
The authorities, seeking to avoid any repeat of the huge demonstrations that erupted after the disputed election in June won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, say security forces will confront any illegal gatherings.
The Guards called on the Iranian people to “exercise vigilance in regard to the likelihood of mischief and plots by the enemy’s agents and some unaware and misguided people on November 4,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
“The Iranian nation will not allow any group to impose itself and use diversionary and false slogans on Wednesday,” it quoted a Guards statement as saying.
Anti-Western rallies usually take place outside the old U.S. embassy — now called the “den of espionage” in Iran — to mark the day in 1979 when radical students scaled its walls and took 52 Americans hostage.
Some reformist websites have called on people to gather outside the Russian embassy instead, apparently to protest against Moscow’s swift recognition of Ahmadinejad’s election victory.
Yesterday, authorities closed down the business newspaper Sarmayeh, critical of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies.
IRNA said the daily was closed because of repeated violations of press laws.
The Intelligence Ministry said five “terrorist” suspects alleged to have planned to assassinate an official ahead of the anti-US rallies had been arrested, state television reported.
In a warning to opposition leaders, deputy police chief Ahmadreza Radan said: “Those who encourage people … to stage gatherings will have to answer for their actions.”
The powerful Guardian Council, Iran‘s top legislative body, threw its weight behind the authorities’ message.
It was confident “the revolutionary youth will not allow a domestic group linked to foreign oppressors and lawbreakers to blemish this great day,” media quoted a statement as saying.