Iran clerics defy election results

IRAN'S most important group of religious leaders has called the disputed presidential election and new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country's supreme leader and a public sign of a split in the country's clerical authorities.

In a sign of a deepening rift among Shiite clerics, the Assembly of Qom Seminary Scholars and Researchers also called for the release of Iranians arrested in protests after the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner of the 12 June vote over opposition candidate Mir Hosein Mousavi.

Mr Ahmadinejad's re-election was strongly backed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Other candidates' complaints and strong evidence of vote- rigging were ignored …peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed … dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested," said a statement published on the assembly's website this weekend. "The outcome is invalid."

Qom is Iran's centre of Shiite learning, about 80 miles south of Tehran. The assembly has little political influence but its statement is a significant act of defiance since Qom is the power base of the clerical establishment.

"This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Mr Mousavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic," said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Programme at Stanford University in the US. "Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Mr Khamenei."

The association includes reformists, but Iranian political analysts describe it as independent and it did not support any candidate in the recent election.

Iranian officials deny the election was rigged, saying it was the "healthiest" since the 1979 revolution.

They have clamped down on the protests, but opponents say they will not give up.

The statement comes as hardliners called for leaders of the protests, the most striking display of dissent in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, to be put on trial.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards yesterday accused opposition leaders of "trying to overthrow the Islamic establishment".

"We had forecast a velvet revolution. But it was neutralised by our vigilance," the official IRNA news agency quoted General Yadollah Javani as saying.

While some clerics, including Ayatollah Mohammad Mesbah Yazdi, are aligned with Ahmadinejad, at least two grand ayatollahs, dissident Hossein Ali Montazeri and moderate Yusof Saanei, had already criticised the authorities.

"With all these problems, how can the result be recognised as legitimate? How can the next government be recognised as legitimate," the Qom assembly statement said.

The association's statement gives a tactical boost to Mr Mousavi, former president Mohammad Khatami and the former speaker of parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who have been the most vocal in calling the election illegitimate and have been hindered in their attempts to force change by the jailing of many of their influential backers.

While the government could continue to paint the three as traitors, analysts say it would be unlikely the leaders would use that same tactic against the clerical establishment.