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Babylon & Beyond

IRAN: Mousavi attacks elections

By Jeffrey FleishmanStaff Writer 
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Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi -- during a day protesters clashed with security forces on streets streaked with tear gas -- has demanded the government annul the contested June 12 election that delivered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his second term.

Mousavi reportedly wrote a letter to the Guardian Council, which oversees voting practices, stating that the elections were fraudulent. ‘The Iranian nation will not believe this unjust and illegal act,’ Mousavi wrote.

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News of the letter came as police and a pro-government militia squared off with thousands of demonstrators in Tehran.

Reuters news agency quoted an unidentified witness as saying that Mousavi urged his supporters to stage a nationwide strike if he was arrested. The developments came as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tried to stem unrest while the opposition attempted to create enough pressure in the streets to force a new election without tipping the nation into mayhem.

-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Babylon & Beyond
Jeffrey Fleishman

Jeffrey Fleishman is a senior writer at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was the foreign and national editor. A 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, Fleishman was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing. A longtime foreign correspondent, he served as bureau chief for The Times in Cairo and Berlin, and was previously based in Rome for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He also was a writer on film, art and culture. Fleishman has been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and a finalist for the Center for Public Integrity’s Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. He is the author of five novels, including “Good Night, Forever” and “Last Dance.”

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