News

 Iran widened its crackdown on opposition supporters protesting the disputed presidential election, detaining 70 academics after they met with defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the country’s leading dissident cleric, said today the continued suppression of opposition protests could destabilize the regime, Agence France- Presse reported. “If Iranians cannot talk about their legitimate rights at peaceful gatherings and are instead suppressed, complexities will build up which could possibly uproot the foundations of the government, no matter how powerful,” the news agency cited him as saying in a faxed statement.