Free Republic

TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian court sentenced a former vice president to six years in jail as part of a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest after the disputed June presidential election, the defendant's lawyer said Sunday.

A top Iranian reformist who went on trial in a Tehran court with about 100 others on charges of rioting backed down on Saturday from claims of massive vote rigging in the June presidential vote. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, giving testimony in a revolutionary court, said there had been no fraud in the June 12 poll which returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office for another four years, the Fars news agency reported. The backdown by Abtahi, a close aide of reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami, deals a blow to the opposition movement which claims that Ahmadinejad's re-election was fraudulent. "I say to...

The uprising in Iran can only succeed if there are fundamental shifts within the clerical power structure that runs the country. There are now signs that an opposition group is crystallizing within the religious leadership.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Leading Iranian reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi was arrested on Tuesday, his office said. Abtahi, a former vice president who backed a pro-reform candidate in last Friday's disputed presidential election, was arrested in the morning, it said without giving further details. (Editing by Angus MacSwan)

TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian vice president, who was a close ally of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, resigned Tuesday, saying he could not work with the conservative-dominated parliament. Mohammad Ali Abtahi first tendered his resignation in February, but it was not accepted. He said Tuesday that the president had accepted his resignation after he insisted he was unable to work with the hard-line parliament. "I feel more than any other time that I can't carry out my responsibilities," Abtahi said in his latest resignation letter, dated Oct. 4. Abtahi was vice president for legal and parliamentary affairs, one of several...