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Iran's Musavi Tells Government To Stop Intimidation


Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi: "We are ready to pay any price."
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi: "We are ready to pay any price."
TEHRAN (Reuters) -- Iran's opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi said the government should stop intimidating people to try and change their political views, a reformist website reported today.

"The government should not intimidate people to change their path...this movement will continue and we are ready to pay any price," Musavi was quoted as saying by his "Kaleme" website.

Musavi's remarks preceded a scheduled gathering today by moderates to commemorate the killing of a dissident nationalist couple, stabbed to death by "rogue" agents in 1998.

Iran's security forces have warned the opposition not to take part in "street riots," trying to avoid a revival of street protests that erupted after Iran's June 12 presidential vote.

The turmoil after the election was the worst in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Authorities deny vote-rigging and portrayed the unrest as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the Islamic state. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad won a second term.

The killing of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, who headed the illegal but tolerated Iran Nation Party, and at least two other secularist figures around the same time in the killing of dissidents, outraged Iranian society.

Security forces clashed with people in the past years at their memorial services, which turned to opposition rallies.

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