TEHRAN: Iran Monday blocked access to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s house to prevent him attending a rally in support of Arab revolts and also deployed anti-riot police in parts of Tehran, reports said.
Witnesses said anti-riot police on motorbikes armed with riot shotguns, tear gas, batons, paintball guns and fire extinguishers were deployed in parts of the capital to prevent gatherings which could turn into anti-government demonstrations.
Police blocked access to the house of Mousavi, who along with fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi has sought to hold a rally Monday to express solidarity towards the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
"Security forces have sent police vans and vehicles to the alley where the house of Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard is located" in Tehran, Kaleme.com, the website of Mousavi, reported.
"From today the police have blocked the alley where their house is located…There is no possibility of coming and going" to the house, it said.
The report said all telephone lines at the house, including the mobile phone connections of Mousavi and his wife, have been severed.
Kaleme.com said the latest "illegal and restrictive measures and pressures were adopted to prevent Mousavi from taking part in a rally in support of the people of Tunisia and Egypt."
Iran has backed the Arab uprisings but the interior ministry refused to permit the opposition rally as officials believe it is a ploy to stage fresh anti-government demonstrations as seen in 2009 after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Despite the ministry’s refusal, several groups claiming to be linked to the opposition movement have said they will stage a rally later Monday to support Arab uprisings.
Karroubi himself has been under a de facto house arrest for almost a week with his family and relatives barred from visiting him.
The two leaders and their supporter remain steadfast in rejecting Ahmadinejad’s presidency, saying the hardliner was re-elected due to massive vote rigging in June 2009.
Their protests in the immediate aftermath of the election brought hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets of Tehran and other cities,
shaking the pillars of the Islamic regime and dividing the nation’s elite clergy.
Iranian authorities crushed those demonstrations during which scores of people were killed and wounded, and thousands arrested in a crackdown by security forces and members of the feared Basij militia.
Iranian officials, including commanders from the elite military force, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij militia have warned the opposition against staging Monday’s rally.
Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi on Sunday said Western spies wanted to ignite a revolt in Iran similar to those which raged in Tunisia and Egypt and that they were searching for "a mentally challenged person who could set himself on fire."
"They (the West) are very retarded and think by imitating such actions they can emerge victorious," said the powerful Islamist volunteer militia’s commander.
Tunisia’s uprising last month that led to the fall and flight into exile of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was set off by the self-immolation in December of a young student.
Copycat acts of desperation followed in Egypt as well as other Arab countries in the days leading up to January 25, when protesters first took to the streets of Cairo for daily mass protests against Mubarak.
The 18-day popular uprising in Egypt ended on Friday when Mubarak handed power to the military after 30 years of autocratic rule.
Naghdi said his militiamen were "ready to sacrifice their lives" to defend the Islamic regime against an opposition which he likened to the "party of Satan."
