By Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels, Los Angeles Times
1:14 PM PDT, September 2, 2010
Reporting from Tehran and Beirut
Iranian security forces patrolled central Tehran on Thursday and the
home of a reformist leader reportedly remained under siege by
pro-government militiamen in what appeared to be attempts to intimidate
the political opposition ahead of rallies planned for Friday.
Riot police lined the streets near Enghelab Square and around Tehran
University in the morning hours ahead of Friday's gatherings to mark
Quds Day, an annual event in support of the Palestinian struggle
against Israel that the government fears will draw opposition
supporters to the streets.
State-run media have called on government supporters to turn out for
Friday's rallies, and the pro-government militiamen, known as Basiji,
produced two new anti-Israel video games called "Satan's Den 2" and
"Attack on Freedom Flotilla" for the occasion.
"The new games will be distributed tomorrow simultaneously with Quds
Day rallies and also sold at a very low price to young people and
teenagers when the new academic year begins," said Mohammad Saleh
Jokar, the head of the Basij for Students and Academics, according to
the semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars.
Commanders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard sternly warned
anti-government protesters before Quds Day last year not to turn out
for the occasion. The 2009 commemoration followed the days of violence
that erupted between pro-regime and anti-government forces after
disputed elections kept President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in office.
This year, pressure appears to have been ratcheted up on Iranian
opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, who said this week that dozens of
plainclothes Basiji militiamen have occasionally surrounded his house
in north Tehran since Sunday to disrupt any plans for him on take part
in Quds Day.
On Wednesday night, about 50 militiamen dressed in civilian clothes and
with their faces covered threw stones at the residence, dismantled
security cameras and splashed paint on the walls, according to the
Iranian reformist website Saham News.
The website said police stood idly by and refused to intervene.
Fatemeh Karroubi, the wife of the reformist leader, this week wrote an
open letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
denouncing what she called the "immoral actions" against her family.
"Can you name a government ruling over backward nations, the primary
human rights of which are not secured, which would treat this way the
family and neighbors of its political opponents?" she wrote. "Do you
consider such destruction and immoral actions as permitted and legal in
the name of defending the Islamic Republic?"
Despite the disruptive efforts, Mehdi Karroubi held a meeting Wednesday
night with another opposition leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, during which
the reformist figures stressed their support for the Palestinian
cause and said that Muslims, Jews, and Christians should be able to
coexist in the area of Israel and the Palestinian territories, Iranian
news websites reported.