[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Iran's embattled opposition leader urged his supporters Wednesday to keep pressing for their rights, and he joined a reformist ex-president to denounce what both men called the regime's "coup" against those contesting the outcome of last month's presidential election.Mir Hossein Mousavi said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government would be illegitimate, and demanded the release of all political prisoners and the institution of electoral reforms and press freedoms, while former President Mohammad Khatami lashed out at what he termed "a poisonous security situation" in the wake of violent street protests.
In separate but equally stinging statements posted on their Web sites, Khatami accused Iran's leadership of a "velvet coup against the people and democracy," and Mousavi said the government's crackdown on demonstrators was "tantamount to a coup."
"Given what has been done and declared unilaterally, we must say that a velvet revolution has taken place against the people and democratic roots of the system," Khatami said, alluding to the government's declaration of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner of the June 12 election.
"People's protests were suppressed, those who were required to protect people's rights humiliated the people yet it [the government] speaks of national reconciliation and peace," Khatami said.
The two men's latest displays of defiance came as Iran's Basij militia accused Mousavi of undermining national security and asked a prosecutor to investigate his role in violent protests, and the European Union considered a pullout of all 27 of its ambassadors in protest.
Mousavi said he was troubled by "the bitter, widespread distrust of the people toward the declared election results and the government that caused it."
"It's not yet too late," said Mousavi, who has slipped from public view in recent days. "It's our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people." Mousavi also condemned alleged attacks by security forces on college dormitories where "blood was spilled and the youth were beaten," and he called for a return to a more "honest" political environment in the Islamic Republic.