Iran's Opposition Requests Permission To Hold Solidarity Rally For Egypt, Tunisia

Iranian opposition figures Mir Hossein Musavi (right) and Mehdi Karrubi want to hold a solidarity rally.

Opposition websites in Iran report that opposition figures Mir Hossein Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi have applied for permission to hold a rally in support of demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia.

The two wrote in their request for the February 14 march in Tehran that it was meant "to declare solidarity with popular movements in the region, especially the freedom-seeking uprisings of the people of Tunisia and Egypt against dictatorship."

Musavi and Karrubi were among the leaders of a wave of opposition-led mass demonstrations that gripped Iran after the reelection of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.
They are routinely denied requests to hold protests.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 4 said the unrest in Egypt had been inspired by Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

compiled from agency reports