Iran admits voter fraud but warns of crackdown
Updated
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have threatened another brutal crackdown if opposition supporters again take to the streets.
Protesters have largely been kept indoors since police and the feared Basij militia used live ammunition and tear gas against them on Saturday, although a small number of protesters were reportedly heading for a central Tehran square last night. The new threat coincides with revelations that there were irregularities in the election count.
Presenter: Anne Barker, Middle East Correspondent
Speaker: Baqer Moin, Iranian author
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BARKER: The scare tactics appear to be working - the streets of Tehran are calmer since the shooting and bloodshed on Saturday that killed at least 10 people.
But the protests still go on.
Opposition supporters are now confined to the rooftops - under the protection of darkness - and presumably out of the way of snipers.
(calls of Allah Akbar)
Their cries of "down with the dictator" have been replaced with Allah Akbar - or God is Great - an echo of the protest movement during the 1979 Islamic revolution.
But the threat of retaliation by authorities is ever present.
Iran's fearsome Revolutionary Guards have threatened to crush any further dissent, just as the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei threatened bloodshed on Friday.
A statement on the guards' website warns demonstrators to prepare for a confrontation if they take to the streets again.
"Be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confration with the guards, the Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces," the statement said. "The relevant forces will show no hesitancy to interfere."
One Iranian man says the threat will have an impact on protesters.
PROTESTER: "So far only police have announced they would clash any protests but now with revolutionary guard they are of course perople would be frightened about them.
BARKER: The threats aren't confined to the protesters.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi renewed the attacks on western governments - accusing them of fomenting the unrest - and wouldn't rule out the possibility of expelling foreign diplomats from Tehran.
HASHQAVI: Spreading anarchy and vandalism by western powers and also western media - these are not at all accepted.
BARKER: Even private funerals for the victims of Saturday's violence are part of the crackdown.
The Iranian government has banned a memorial service for the young woman - Neda Soltani - apparently shot dead by security forces, and whose brutal death was captured so graphically on amateur video.
(sound of YouTube video)
With hundreds planning to attend, authorities clearly feared the service would only give rise to another symbolic protest.
For all the threats, the main opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi continues to rally his supporters to maintain the rage against last week's election.
In a statement on his website he tells Iranians: "The country belongs to you. Protesting against lies and fraud is your right."
BARKER: Baqer Moin - an Iranian author living in London, says Mr Mousavi is simply trying to uphold his rights.
MOIN - "In a sense they say, according to the Iranian Constitution we've got the right to hold peaceful demonstrations and the government should allow us to do so.
BARKER: Iran's Guardian Council has now admitted there were irregularities in last week's election count.
It's found in 50 constituencies there were more ballots than there were voters.
But it still insists the overall result won't change.
