Iran's opposition green movement calls for renewed street protests

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi ask permission to stage rally in solidarity with protesters in Egypt and Tunisia

guardian.co.uk, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Tuesday 8 February 2011 16.20 GMT

Iran's opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi addresses a June 2009 rally.
He has asked permission to stage a march through Tehran next week.
Photograph: Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty Images

Iran's opposition has called for renewed street protests next week on the back of the wave of demonstrations that have swept across the Middle East.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the leaders of the green movement in Iran, have issued a call for what they have described as "a solidarity move to support the protests in two Muslim countries of Egypt and Tunisia" on Monday.

The green movement staged a series of mass demonstrations for several weeks in 2009, following a disputed presidential election that gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Tehran and other major cities saw the biggest popular uprising in the history of the Islamic Republic.

The green movement was a reaction to the 2009
election in Iran. Photograph: Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

In a joint letter addressed to Iran's interior minister, Mustafa Mohammad Najjar, Mousavi and Karroubi have asked permission to stage a march from Imam Hossein Square to Azadi (or Freedom) Square in central Tehran.

On his official website, Mousavi has likened the protests in Egypt and Tunisia to those in Iran in 2009. "Undoubtedly, the starting point of what we are witnessing in the streets of Tunis, Sana'a, Cairo, Alexandria and Suez should be seen in the Iranian protests," he said.

"The Middle East is on the threshold of great events these days that could affect the fate of the region and the world." .

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has hailed the Egyptian uprising and said that it was inspired by the Islamic revolution in 1979.

"Today's events in the north of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation. They have special meaning. This is the same Islamic awakening which resulted in the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation," he was quoted by the IRNA state news agency as saying at his Friday prayer sermon last week.

It is unlikely that Ahmadinejad's government will give permission for the opposition protest, but the leaders of the green movement are using the request to reach out to the public. Iran's constitution allows for peaceful demonstrations.

The call has been welcomed by Iran's huge online community, which has already started to promote it via social networking websites and in blogs. Flyers and posters are being designed by anonymous supporters of the green movement who have distributed them among internet users.

On Friday Tehran will stage a pro-government demonstration to mark the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

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Anti-government protests in Iran in 2009. (Photograph: Getty Images)