Iran executed 13 members of a Sunni Muslim rebel group by hanging on Tuesday morning in a prison in the southeastern city of Zahedan, the country’s state news agency reported.
The government in the Shia majority country considers the rebel group Jundallah a terrorist organisation and has accused the group of killing hundreds of Iranian soldiers and civilians. Tehran has also accused the US of backing the group, which is composed of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority who complain of persecution by the overwhelmingly Shia and Persian Iranian government.
Also on Tuesday an adviser to Mir Hussein Mousavi, the main challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the opposition leader would soon form a political front, an umbrella group made up of reform-minded political parties to challenge hard-liners and push for democracy.
Mr Mousavi will attend Friday prayers this week in his first official public appearance since last month’s disputed presidential vote, according to a newspaper report.
The Etemad daily said the prayers at Tehran University will be led by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and a rival of Mr Ahmadinejad and one of the four Friday prayer leaders in Tehran.
The reformist Mohammad Khatami, another former president and supporter of Mr Mousavi, will also attend, the newspaper said.
“Mousavi and Khatami will attend the prayers this week led by Rafsanjani. This will be their first public appearance in an official event after the (June 12) election,” said the daily, citing Mr Mousavi’s Facebook page. It also said Mr Mousavi had urged his supporters to attend the sermon.
The country’s most powerful figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, upheld Mr Ahmadinejad’s landslide win in his Friday sermon one week after the vote. But Mr Mousavi has denounced the vote as rigged, saying the next government is “illegitimate”.
14 Jul 2009
Telegraph