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Also, from the Washingotn Post, "Iran Vows To Make Example of Arrestees":The Iranian government stepped up pressure Tuesday on opponents challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, setting up a special court to try detained protesters, carrying out new arrests and launching a campaign to publicly vilify those calling for a new vote.
Authorities also formally rejected the opposition's demands to annul the disputed June 12 presidential election on grounds of massive fraud and set a deadline of mid-August for Ahmadinejad's inauguration and the confirmation of his new cabinet.
But in an apparent effort to assuage the opposition, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, agreed to give a powerful supervisory body an additional five days to review the complaints of fraud.
President Obama's remarks Tuesday on the tumult seemed to strike a chord with at least some opposition supporters in Iran.
In an affluent North Tehran neighborhood, where people watched Obama's White House news conference on a big-screen satellite television, one woman commented: "He is following the right line. He should not give the regime an excuse to blame the U.S. for the protests."
Reporters "should grill him on human rights," a man said of Obama, while trying to work around censored Web sites on his computer.
On a day of relative calm after security forces broke up protests Monday, the government vowed to make an example of detained "rioters" and teach them a lesson. Hundreds of Iranians have been arrested in the past 10 days since the Interior Ministry declared that Ahmadinejad outpolled his nearest rival, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, by nearly 2 to 1. Mousavi has vowed to continue protesting despite a government ban on demonstrations and a public warning from Khamenei.
Truckloads of police in riot gear deployed at Tehran's main squares Tuesday to prevent a recurrence of the protests, and there were no signs of significant opposition gatherings.
A senior official of Iran's judiciary, which is controlled by the ruling Shiite Muslim clerics, said Tuesday that a special court would try detained protesters, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
"Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," the official, Ibrahim Raisi, was quoted as saying. "The rioters should be dealt with in an exemplary way, and the judiciary will do that." Raisi did not elaborate.
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