TEHRAN, Iran — Fires one after another were set in Tehran. And there were stunning scenes of masked rioters tangling with black-clad police.
Opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police in the Iranian capital Saturday, accusing the hard-line leader of using fraud to steal election victory from his reformist rival.
The reformists’ new hero, Mir Hossein Mous-avi, declared himself the true winner of Friday’s presidential race and urged backers to resist a government based on "lies and dictatorship.”
Authorities, too, pushed back with ominous measures apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices: jamming text messages, blocking pro-Mousavi Web sites and Facebook and cutting off mobile phones in Tehran.
The extent of possible casualties and detentions was not clear.
Police stormed the headquarters of Iran’s largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, and arrested several reformist leaders, said activists close to the party.
Mousavi did not appear in public but warned in a Web message: "People won’t respect those who take power through fraud.”
The political chief of the Revolutionary Guard has warned it would crush any "revolution” against the Islamic regime by Mousavi’s "green movement.” And Ahmadinejad, in a nationally televised victory speech, accused the foreign media of producing coverage that harmed the Iranian people.
by the associated press
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