Iran’s Rafsanjani avoids Friday prayers over vote unrest

          
          Iran!s Rafsanjani avoids Friday prayers over vote unrest Special Coverage... http://www.reuters.coni/article/GCA•Iran/idUSTRE57A1DW2009O81 1
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          Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:32am EDT
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          Featured Brokersponsoreci link TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's influential
          former president Akbar Hash emi
          Rafsanjani will not lead Friday prayers
          this week to avoid possible unrest over
          the country's disputed presidential vote, newspapers reported on
          Tuesday.
          Challenging the authority of Iran's most powerful figure Supreme
          Leader Ayatollah All Khamenei, Rafsanjani declared the Islamic republic
          in crisis during his last Friday prayer sermon in July and demanded an
          end to arrests of moderates.
          After Rafsanjani's sermon on July 17, clashes erupted between police
          and followers of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who says the
          June vote was rigged to secure the re-election of hardline President
          Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
          “To avoid any possible clashes at Friday prayers, he will not lead the
          prayers this week,” the office of Rafsanjani, also the head of the
          Assembly of Experts, said in a statement, the Etemad daily reported.
          The June 12 presidential vote plunged Iran into its biggest internal
          crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution and exposed deepening divisions
          in its ruling elite.
          Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform
          politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers, have been detained by the
          authorities since the election.
          Iranian official media have said at least 26 people died in violence after
          the poll.
          Rafsanjani, an architect of the Islamic revolution, has warned the
          post-election power struggle would harm the establishment.
          Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, defeated candidates
          Mehdi Karoubi and Mousavi have denounced Ahmadinejad's new
          government as “illegitimate.” Ahmadinejad was officially sworn in on
          Wednesday.
          In an attempt to uproot the opposition and to end street protests, Iran
          held two mass trials of moderates, including several prominent figures,
          charged with offences that included acting against national security by
          fomenting unrest.
          An Iranian Revolutionary Court on Saturday charged a French woman,
          two Iranians working for the British and French embassies in Tehran
          and dozens of others with spying and aiding a Western plot to
          overthrow the clerical rule.
          Espionage and acting against national security are punishable by death
          under Iran's Islamic law.
          Rafsanjani is one of the four rotating Friday prayer leaders in Tehran.
          (Writing by Zahra Hosseinian, Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
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          Iran 's Rafsanjani avoids Friday
          prayers over vote unrest
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