Iran opposition says rulers crushing freedom

Opposition leaders issued fresh calls for freedom, accusing Iran's rulers of robbing liberty, jailing people and banning the media, as the nation on Saturday marked the anniversary of last year's disputed presidential election.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi called off plans to stage new demonstrations against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over safety concerns, but vowed that their agitation against his re-election will continue.

The authorities deployed hundreds of policemen and Islamic Basij militiamen in central Tehran squares to crush any opposition attempts to launch protests.

Late on Friday, Mousavi said Iran's rulers had distanced themselves from the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution and were "shutting peoples' mouths, banning the media, holding elections as we saw last year and filling the prisons" with those who opposed them.

The security forces used deadly force to quell the massive demonstrations which erupted after Ahmadinejad returned to power in what the opposition had charged was a massively rigged poll.

Protests have not now been held for months, but Tehran's governor general warned against any attempts to demonstrate on Saturday.

"Any illegal move to disrupt public order and trouble people will not be tolerated and will be dealt with," Morteza Tamaddon was quoted as saying on the eve of the anniversary by the state news agency IRNA.

By 11:15 GMT, there were no reports of protests, but late Friday people were shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) -- now an opposition mantra -- from rooftops in several areas of Tehran.

The authorities were not taking any chances and deployed hundreds of policemen and Basij militiamen in Tehran's Haft-e Tir Square, Azadi (Freedom) Square, Enghelab (Revolution) Square, and Valiasr Square -- venues of previous opposition protests, an AFP correspondent reported.

There was no sign of opposition supporters and afternoon traffic too was easy, a sign of people preferring to stay indoors.

Groups of police and Basijis could be seen in the squares and in buses parked in nearby alleys as they stood guard, while some toured on motorcycles moving from one square to another.

The June 12, 2009 election has bitterly divided Iran's political elite and dragged Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly backs the president, into the crisis.

He accused the West of masterminding the protests in a bid to topple the Islamic regime.

But former premier Mousavi and ex-parliament speaker Karroubi, who were close to Iran's revolutionary father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, brush aside such allegations.

For them, the opposition "Green Movement" is a grassroots initiative pursuing the aspirations of the revolution, including free elections, freedom of expression and respect for human rights.

Mousavi urged that the opposition movement be kept alive and said demonstrations need not be the only way to protest.

"We should ... help expand websites ... as films shot on cellphones ... are our best instruments. They act like an army," he said on Sahamnews, Karroubi's website.

Last year's uprising was symbolised by a mobile phone video of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan bleeding to death on a Tehran street during a protest posted on the Internet.

Dozens of people were reportedly killed in running street battles between security forces and protesters in Tehran and other cities after the election.

The regime crushed the protests, rounding up politicians and journalists close to Mousavi and Karroubi and unleashing the feared Basij on those who dared to demonstrate.

In its 2099 annual report, Amnesty International charged that "compelling evidence emerged that a number of detainees, both women and men, had been raped and otherwise tortured in detention."

The authorities reacted furiously to the accusations of rape first made by Karroubi.

But they were forced to admit abuses at Tehran's notorious Kahrizak detention centre, which was closed after at least three protesters died of injuries there.

Iran has also sentenced 10 protesters to death and hanged seven people on security charges unrelated to the election but seen as a warning to opposition groups.