TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran accused the West on Monday of “meddling” in its state affairs for criticizing its mass trial of moderates charged with spying and trying to topple the clerical establishment after the disputed president vote.
“Do we interfere in other countries’ state matters? Why should they interfere in ours? Iran will strongly resist such meddling,” senior official Hassan Qashqavi told a weekly news conference.
“Why don’t they (the West) leave us and our people alone?”
The June 12 election, which secured hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite and set off a wave of protests that left 26 people dead.
In an attempt to uproot the opposition, Iran began two mass trials of over 100 people, including prominent figures, a French woman and two Iranians working for the British and French embassies in Tehran. It charged them with spying and assisting a Western plot to overthrow the clerical rule.
