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A leading opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi, issued a statement on Monday giving new details of prison abuse allegations in Iran, just days after a judicial panel rejected such claims and the country’s supreme leader warned of a “harsh response” to those making them.

Another top opposition figure, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, urged fellow clerics in a new statement posted on his Web site on Monday to throw their support behind the opposition and to speak against “the violations that are happening under the name of religion.” Later, the ayatollah’s Facebook page reported that three of his grandsons, 18 to 22 years old, were arrested that evening in Qum, at the home of his son and their father, Ahmad Montazeri, who runs the ayatollah’s office.