The leaders of Iran’s opposition movement sent an open letter of protest to the country’s highest religious authorities on Saturday, complaining that the state had used “illegal, immoral and irreligious methods” in the crackdown following last month’s disputed presidential election and calling for the release of hundreds of people arrested since. The letter came a day after the funeral of a young protester with links to Iran’s political elite, whose father told a senior military commander that the youth had been beaten after his arrest, held incommunicado and allowed to die of an infection. The funeral drew senior figures, including conservative members of Parliament and a representative from the office of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A large mourning service is planned for Sunday. The open letter was the latest sign of the opposition movement’s continuing defiance, despite stern warnings by leading clerics to drop the issue and an enormous police presence that has largely scuttled street protests for the past week. It followed >>>
