Iranian Clerics Protest Election Results

By VOA News 05 July 2009

A group of leading Iranian clerics has criticized the results of the country's disputed presidential election.

In a statement released Sunday, clerics from the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom said Iran's official electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council, failed to adequately investigate claims of vote rigging by the opposition.

The pro-reform group questioned whether the Council's validation is enough to legitimize the vote. Last week, the 12-member Council upheld the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi during a press conference after polls closed in Tehran, 12 June 2009

Defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has criticized the outcome. In a 24-page report posted to his Web site Saturday, Mr. Mousavi accuses supporters of Mr. Ahmadinejad of handing out cash to voters in the run-up to the June 12 vote.

The report also says top officials with the Guardian Council and with the Interior Ministry, which is charged with counting the votes, were public supporters of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Also Saturday, a top Iranian newspaper called for Mr. Mousavi to be tried for treason. An editorial in the conservative daily Kayhan accused Mr. Mousavi of inciting post-election riots on orders from the United States.

The editorial by hardline cleric Hossein Shariatmadari, a close aide of Iran's supreme leader ,also called for Iran's former president and leading reformist, Mohammad Khatami, to be tried for treason.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP.