Wearing black, Mousavi supporters hold mourning rally

Internet video: Iranian police clash
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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Mirhossein Mousavi's backers, wearing black and carrying candles, rallied in Tehran on Thursday to mourn those killed in mass protests against an election the defeated candidate says was rigged.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Days of public fury over the disputed election led Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, to invite Mousavi and the two other candidates beaten by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss their complaints on Saturday.
The election has provoked Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Bloodshed, protests, arrests and a media crackdown have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Witnesses said people packed Imam Khomeini Square in central Tehran on Thursday, a day after Mousavi called on his supporters to gather in mosques or at peaceful rallies.
He told them to wear the color of mourning -- black as opposed to the green of his election campaign -- in solidarity with families of those wounded or killed in the protests.
"Where are our brothers?" read one banner in the crowd. "Why did you kill our brothers?" read another.
Iran's English-language state television has reported eight people killed in protests since election results were published. Scores of reformists have been arrested across the country.
Security agents detained opposition politician Ebrahim Yazdi while he was in hospital, an ally of his said on Thursday. Yazdi heads the banned Freedom Movement and was foreign minister in Iran's first government after the revolution.
A spokesman for the Guardian Council said it had begun "careful examination" of 646 complaints submitted after the June 12 vote. Complaints include shortage of ballot papers, pressure on voters to support a particular candidate, and the barring of candidates' representatives from polling stations.
Ahmadinejad was declared winner with nearly 63 percent of the vote against 34 percent for his closest rival, Mousavi, a moderate politician who wants better ties with the West.
Mousavi wants the vote annulled and held again. The council has said it is ready only to recount disputed ballot boxes.
Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai said Mousavi and fellow-candidates Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaie could raise their problems at an extraordinary council meeting on Saturday.
"CHALLENGE TO WESTERN DEMOCRACY"
Ahmadinejad defended the legitimacy of the vote, telling a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that it had "posed a great challenge to the West's democracy," Mehr news agency reported. Continued...
Source: Reuters