Iran

Revolutionary Guards call for opposition leaders to be tried

Article published on the 2009-08-09 Latest update 2009-08-09 11:48 TU

Clotilde Reiss in court in Tehran, 8 August 2009.
(Photo: Reuters)

A top Revolutionary Guards official called on Sunday for Iran to put on trial the main opposition leaders who are campaigning against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Yadollah Javani, the head of the elite force's political bureau, said a plot to topple the Islamic regime through a "velvet coup" has been exposed.

He says Mohammad Khatami and defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are behind the plot.

"If they are the main agents, which is the case, judiciary and security officials should go after them, arrest them, try them and punish them," he said in an article in Sobh-e Sadegh, the Guards' weekly journal.

Sunday editions of Iran's conservative press, blame Britain in particular, and the US and Israel more broadly, for orchestrating the protests and clashes.

Meanwhile, France has demanded the release of 24-year-old French woman Clotilde Reiss, a university teaching assistant, who has been jailed in Tehran.

Yesterday she appeared in court with a British embassy local staffer Hossein Rassam, and French Embassy cultural section employee Nazak Afshar, a Franco-Iranian.

The European Union's presidency, currently held by Sweden, said the court accusations against employees of the British and French Embassies in Iran is an act against the entire 27-nation bloc.