The Tehran Governor has announced that the authorities are prepared to confront any attempt to hold public demonstrations on February 14.
Morteza Tamaddon dismissed the opposition’s call to rally demonstrators on February 14 as a mere “promotional show.” He said: “Tehran is equipped with all forms of security systems [to confront the demonstrators].”
In an interview with the Young Reporters Club, Tamddon said: “After the sedition of 2009, we have dealt with many such rallies, but this one is just a promotional show by the anti-revolutionary opposition.”
Iranian authorities use the word sedition to describe the post-election protests that challenged the legitimacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the 2009 presidential election.
The Coordination Council for the Green Path of Hope has called on the “friends of the Green Movement” to rally in protest against the house arrest of opposition leaders MirHosein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karroubi. They have been cut off from the outside world since last February 14, when they called for a march in solidarity with Arab uprisings, which led to a number of deaths and widespread arrests.
The Tehran Governor announced that the opposition’s call for demonstrations is aimed at influencing the March parliamentary elections, and the state is fully prepared to counter them.
Amnesty International has issued a statement calling on the Islamic Republic authorities to let the public carry out peaceful demonstrations on February 14 and to avoid using any form of violence against demonstrators.
