Iran Guards call for trial of opposition leaders

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi should be put on trial for fomenting the unrest that erupted after the country's June presidential election, a news agency said.

"If Mousavi, (defeated candidate Mehdi) Karoubi and (former president Mohammad) Khatami are main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary...to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them," said a senior Guards' commander, Yadollah Javani, the official IRNA news agency reported.

A senior Iranian military commander meanwhile said that foreign media should be more controlled to preserve the clerical establishment particularly after the country's disputed presidential vote.

 If Mousavi, (defeated candidate Mehdi) Karoubi and (former president Mohammad) Khatami are main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary ... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them  

Yadollah Javani, Revolutionary Guards

"After failure of the velvet revolution in Iran...key foreign figures inside... the country are planning second phases of their plan to weaken the system. Part of their second plan is using their media. So, they (the foreign media) should be more controlled," said senior military commander Masoud Jazayeri, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Tehran press

French lecturer Clotilde Reiss during the trial in Tehran

Iran's hardline press lashed out on Sunday at the role of foreign governments in the post-election turmoil, targeting Britain in particular after British and French embassy staff were put on trial, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepares to submit his cabinet list to parliament next week.

"The British embassy: headquarters for the coup command," read the front-page headline of the government newspaper Iran after a local British embassy staffer was accused of spying in a revolutionary court on Saturday.

Hussein Rassam, the main political analyst at the embassy, appeared in court along with 24-year-old French lecturer Clotilde Reiss, and Franco-Iranian Nazak Afshar, who works for the cultural section of the French embassy in Tehran.

"London, the command room of street riots in Tehran, with Washington and Tel Aviv's cooperation," echoed the front-page headline in the leading hardline newspaper Kayhan.

The paper, whose director is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, charged that British diplomats were in "constant contact" with the campaign of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi.

Mousavi has waged a defiant campaign against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in June, which triggered massive street protests and political turmoil that has shaken the very roots of the Islamic republic.

Moderate conservative daily Tehran Emrouz said Saturday's indictment "named Britain, France and Germany as supporters of a soft coup" against the Islamic regime.