Iran Opposition Calls Rally To Mourn Dead
Last Updated 7:04 a.m. Eastern
Iran braced for a fourth day of massive protests Thursday by opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in open defiance of the country's supreme leader, who has urged the nation to unite behind the Islamic state.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi urged supporters to wear black Thursday to the planned rally in mourning for the alleged election fraud during Friday's vote and lives lost during this week's protests.
On state television, street conflicts have been portrayed as merely a provocation by hooligans. And along with staging pro-government rallies, Iranian officials are warning foreign governments against "meddling" in Iran's internal politics, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth.
Seven demonstrators were shot earlier this week by pro-regime militia in the first confirmed deaths since the unrest erupted after the election, which the government said Ahmadinejad won in a landslide victory.
Thursday's protest would be the fourth straight day of major marches in Tehran, including hundreds of thousands of people Monday in a huge procession that recalled the protests of the Islamic Revolution. Mousavi's Web site said he may join the rally on Thursday to be held at a downtown Tehran square.
Thousands took to the streets Wednesday, marching silently down a main Tehran street, holding posters of Mousavi and the V-for-victory sign in the air, amateur video showed.
Authorities have rounded up perceived dissidents and tried to further muzzle Web sites and other networks used by Mousavi's backers to share information and send out details of Iran's crisis after foreign journalists were banned from reporting in the streets.
Officials also stepped up claims that foreign hands have been behind the unrest.
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A statement by state-run Press TV blamed Washington for "intolerable" interference in the bloody showdown over allegations of vote-rigging and fraud. The report, on Press TV, cited no evidence.
It said the government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference. The two countries severed diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The State Department this week asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its service to keep information flowing from inside Iran, three U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
A State Department spokesman said Washington was withholding judgment about the election and was not interfering in Iran's internal affairs. President Obama has offered to open talks with Iranian leaders to end a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze.
For nearly that entire time, Iran's ruling clerics held uncontested power over nearly every critical decision, including possible talks with Washington. But the upheavals have pushed them into unfamiliar territory.
Khamenei and his inner circle have been drawn into a messy and public crisis - with the election dispute even bringing possible splits within the theocracy.
Chances for a full-scale collapse are considered very remote. The ruling clerics still have deep public support and are defended by Iran's strongest forces, the Revolutionary Guard and a vast network of militias around the country.
But Mousavi's opposition movement has broken significant ground. It has forced Iran's most powerful figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, into the center of the escalating crisis and broken taboos about questioning his role as the final word on all critical matters.
"It's changing the way Iranians see the supreme leader and the system in general," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian affairs analyst. "That opens up they system up in ways it's never faced before."
Javedanfar believes two critical factors should be watched: whether the opposition movement can keep its show of strength on the streets for several more weeks and, more importantly, if it can bring in influential voices from Iran's Islamic clergy.
Shortly after the election, Mousavi appealed for the backing of clerics in the holy city of Qom, Iran's seat of Islamic learning and a critical political base for the theocracy. He received shows of support from several prominent liberal and dissident religious figures.
Palmer reports that one of those figures was Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who said Wednesday that "no sound mind" could accept the election results as valid.
Another key figure who seems to be backing Mousavi, explains Time magazine reporter Joe Klein, who just returned from Iran, is Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Klein told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president who now heads two powerful governing clerical bodies in the country, is one of the individuals who might be capable of fomenting enough internal descent to force change in the country's clerical leadership.
Rafanjani is a politician, but he is also a long-time member of Iran's Islamic clerical establishment. He studied alongside the country's first supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, and is generally viewed as a conservative pragmatist.
Klein explains that, while the government, currently led by President Ahmadinejad with the backing of present supreme leader Khamenei, feels right now that it is still in control of the situation, there is, "great worry that it will get out of control."
"The problem is that this has unleashed a real debate within the Iranian establishment. Powerful forces are going up against each other in a way that we have never seen before," Klein told Smith.
It would take a powerful figure like Rafsanjani, who has backed Mousavi in the election dispute and has long been a critic of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, to force any real change in Iran.
And while it is theoretically possible for the Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani leads, to force the ouster of Khamenei, Klein points out that Iran has only had two supreme leaders since the revolution, and it is a position which comes with "great job security." (To read more of Joe Klein's original reporting for Time Magazine, click here.)
But Mousavi, who served as prime minister during the 1980s, has not captured widespread support among the Qom clerics. That doesn't mean, however, they are supporting Ahmadinejad, either.
Many have congratulated Khamenei for holding the election, but any mention of Ahmadinejad's victory was noticeably absent.
Rafsanjani was a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad during the election, but has not publicly backed Mousavi. It is not known whether Mousavi has actively courted Rafsanjani's support or if they have held talks.
But Iranian TV showed pictures of Faezeh Hashemi, Rafsanjani's daughter, speaking to hundreds of Mousavi supporters, carrying pictures of Khomeini.
Robin Niblett, director of the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, said he does not believe Mousavi wants to topple Iran's theocracy, but his allegations of vote fraud could undermine the authority and respect of Khamenei.
"It is a split itself over this election and the broader grand strategy of the country," Niblett said. "I don't believe the protesters want to overthrow the system at this time - although their ire at Khamenei may yet increase."
Iran's supreme leader issued a rare public appeal to unite behind the Islamic state on Tuesday. Khamenei has normally remained aloof from direct involvement in political disputes, but the scope of crisis has pushed him into an unfamiliar role as mediator.
Mousavi's backers have now staged three straight days of major marches in Tehran, including hundreds of thousands of people Monday in a huge procession that recalled the protests of the Islamic Revolution.
An amateur video showed thousands marching Wednesday on an overpass in support of Mousavi's campaign.
Palmer reported that that protests also occurred Wednesday in Isfahan, south of the capital, and several other cities considered strongholds of Ahmadinejad's supporters.
In one high-profile display of apparent support for the opposition, several Iranian soccer players wrapped their wrists with green tape - the color of Mousavi's campaign - during a World Cup qualifying match in South Korea that was televised in Iran.
In New York's Union Square, about 700 demonstrators held signs, lit candles and peacefully chanted - at times in Farsi - as twilight turned to nighttime.
Event organizer Amid Amidi, a first generation Iranian-American, said he planned the rally to show support for the people risking their lives while protesting on the streets of Tehran.
"The dam is leaking in Iran," Amidi said. "They're on the verge of . . . a democratic and free government."
In Paris, demonstrators held up banners saying "Freedom of Expression in Iran," and "Where is my vote?" near the Eiffel Tower. In Rome, about 300 people gathered to show solidarity with Mousavi.