Iran opposition leaders to attend victims' ceremony

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leaders said they would attend a memorial ceremony on Thursday for protesters killed since the disputed June presidential election, defying a stern threat by revolutionary guards to break up the gathering.

"(Defeated candidates) Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi will go to Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery today to commemorate Neda Agha-Soltan and other victims of the unrest," said Ghalamnews, Mousavi's website.

Defying the clerical establishment's ban on any such ceremony, Mousavi and Karoubi accepted the invitation of Neda's mother to mark the 40th day since her death and remember other victims of the unrest at Neda's grave.

Neda, a 26-year-old music student, was shot on June 20, when supporters of Mousavi clashed with riot police and Basij militiamen in Tehran. Footage of her death has been watched by thousands on the Internet.

Authorities have said Neda was not shot by a bullet used by Iranian security forces, suggesting the incident was staged to blacken the image of the clerical establishment.

Iranian media have reported the deaths of several other protesters following the vote. Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers, have been detained since the election.

The head of Tehran's Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Abdollah Araghi, warned against any gathering, raising the threat of clashes erupting between armed forces and mourners at the cemetery.

"We are not joking. We will confront those who want to fight against the clerical establishment," said Araghi, according to the semi-official Fars news agency on Wednesday.

DIVISIONS

Iranian authorities turned down a request by opposition leaders to hold a memorial ceremony for the unrest victims on Thursday at Tehran's Grand Mosala, a prayer location where tens of thousands can gather.

The presidential vote plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution and exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite.

Mousavi and Karoubi say the June 12 vote was rigged in favor of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Some hardline clerics support Ahmadinejad, but other senior Shi'ite figures, including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, have attacked the way the authorities have handled the poll and its aftermath.

"I am warning the authorities again to act before the current crisis deepens," Montazeri said in a statement published by the Etemad-e Melli website. Montazeri has called for national mourning for those killed in the unrest.

Ahmadinejad is under pressure from his hardline supporters over his initial choice of vice-president and his decision to dismiss a hardline intelligence minister who criticized the president for defying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei endorsed the election result and sided openly with Ahmadinejad, but ordered Ahmadinejad to drop his nomination of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie as his deputy. Mashaie had said Iran had no quarrel with Israelis, only their government.

For a week Ahmadinejad ignored Khamenei's order. The disarray in the hardline camp is likely to complicate Ahmadinejad's job of forming a new cabinet.

The hardline Ya Lesarat weekly made an unusually blunt comment on the affair, directed at Ahmadinejad.

"Your adopted measures in recent weeks have surprised your supporters," it said. "If such moves continue, we will strongly urge you to give back our votes."

(Editing by Andrew Roche)