Vast crowd gathers for Khamenei sermon in Tehran

Iranians mourn with mass rally
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By Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Iranians streamed toward Tehran University on Friday to hear Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei address the nation for the first time since a disputed election result sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Khamenei has urged Iranians to unite behind hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but supporters of defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi have so far ignored the call, holding huge rallies in defiance of an official ban.
People chanting slogans and holding posters of Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the father of the 1979 Islamic revolution, packed streets outside the university where the supreme leader was to deliver a Friday prayer sermon.
At least one police helicopter hovered overhead.
"Ahmadinejad has been our president for four years, and during this time he has always told the truth to our people," said Javid Abbasirad, 48, outside the university gates.
At the same venue, hundreds of university students had demonstrated in support of Mousavi on Sunday, hurling stones are riot police trying to disperse protesters outside the gates.
ANTI-WESTERN SLOGANS
Some of the crowd waiting to hear Khamenei were draped in Iranian flags. Others held placards with anti-Western slogans.
"Don't let the history of Iran be written with the pen of foreigners," one flyer said, reflecting official Iranian anger at international criticism of the post-election violence.
A group of clerics and citizens left the holy city of Qom for a 150 km (100 mile) walk to Tehran in a show of support for Khamenei, state radio and television reported.
Khamenei's speech follows six days of protests by Mousavi supporters. On Thursday, tens of thousands of black-clad marchers bore candles to mourn those killed in earlier rallies.
The protests are the largest and most widespread since the revolution in Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, which is also at odds with the West over its nuclear program.
Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13. Scores of reformists have been arrested and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said about 500 people had been arrested in the last week, and called for their unconditional release. She said Iran should hold new elections under the supervision of the United Nations. Continued...
Source: Reuters