Mousavi rally draws massive crowds in Tehran

Iranians call for post-vote calm
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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Many tens of thousands of Iranians chanted support for Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran on Monday after a presidential election they say was stolen from him and handed to the hardline incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), they converged on Revolution Square, where Mousavi addressed a small part of the crowd through a loud hailer and held his fists clenched above his head, in a sign of victory, after two days of the capital's most violent unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The gathering, which took place in defiance of an Interior Ministry ban, was a reply to Ahmadinejad's government-organized victory rally, which also drew vast crowds on Sunday.
Supporters stretching along several kilometers of a Tehran boulevard waved green flags, Mousavi's campaign colors, and held portraits of him aloft as they tried to take pictures on their cellphones -- even though his words could not be heard above the noise of the crowd.
Iran's state television said Mousavi, looking smiling and relaxed in a striped shirt, had said he was ready in case the election was re-run.
"Mousavi, take back our votes," the marchers chanted before Mousavi appeared, along with other pro-reform leaders who backed his call for Friday's election result to be overturned.
The disputed election has dismayed Western powers trying to induce the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter to curb nuclear work that they suspect is for bomb-making, a charge Iran denies.
U.S. CONCERN
U.S. leaders have reacted cautiously, in the hope of keeping alive President Barack Obama's strategy of engagement with Iran.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters: "Obviously we continue to have concerns about what we're seeing."
But the European Union increased pressure on Iran to agree to opposition demands to investigate Ahmadinejad's landslide election victory and halt a crackdown on protesters.
France, Germany and Britain led the EU campaign to persuade Iran to clarify the election results.
In Paris, Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said Iran's ambassador had been summoned to hear French concerns over "the brutal repression of peaceful protests and the repeated attacks on the liberty of the press and freedom of speech."
Britain said it was worried that events in Iran might affect any future international engagement with its government.
"The implications are not yet clear," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. "What we know is that there has been no Iranian response to the outreach that has been made by the international community, including the United States." Continued...
Source: Reuters