Iran’s Rafsanjani Challenges Post-Election Crackdown : Via Bloomberg.com.

uly 17 (Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani challenged the government’s crackdown on protests over the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urging respect for the opposition and the release of detainees.

“There is no need for force, if military, security and intelligence forces allow,” Rafsanjani, a former president who heads the country’s influential Assembly of Experts, said during a nationally broadcast Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University. “We are all part of one family.”

His audience included former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, state-run Press TV said. Mousavi, whose election bid was backed indirectly by Rafsanjani, is among opposition candidates who have said the June 12 vote was rigged. Ahmadinejad, whose re-election was endorsed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has denied the charge.
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Iran opposition leader, wife visit slain man's family: Via Los Angeles Times.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife are swarmed by supporters near the home. His plans to form a political front win the backing of powerful cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a key conservative.

Reporting from Beirut -- Iran's leading opposition figure and his wife emerged Tuesday night to pay their respects to the family of a 19-year-old man slain in the nation's recent weeks of violence, according to witnesses and reports on news websites.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his popular wife, Zahra Rahnavard, visited the family of Sohrab Aarabi in Tehran, paying tribute to the teenager whose death and whose mother's weeks-long quest to find him have emerged as symbols of the protest movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Photographs posted on the Gooya website showed Mousavi and Rahnavard swarmed by supporters as they approached the family's home in the city's north-central Apadana district.
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Experts laud role of new media in Iranian protests: Via The Jerusalem Post – JPost.com .

Twitter's role in the recent Iranian protests has been exaggerated, but new media were crucial in enabling an online community within and beyond Iran to convey information to protesters otherwise shut off from independent news sources, according to new media experts.

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in Iran's controversial presidential election, supporters of rival Mir Hossein Mousavi organized their opposition using many online tools that helped coordinate rallies and provide coverage about the events in their country and the response around the world, noted members of a panel on Tuesday. The panel was hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Center for International Media Assistance.

As the government cracked down on this online activity, the international press focused on the use of Twitter, which was harder to block due to its decentralized framework.

"I think the Twitter story has been greatly exaggerated," said Robert Faris, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
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Iran Goes on Strike: Via The Daily Beast.

Reza Aslan reports that opposition leaders in Iran are planning a three-day strike to be carried out under the cover of a religious holiday. Now if only Iranians can get the rest of us to care.

[...]

But this year, supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the reformist challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are planning to take up the government’s appeal for religious observance. Mousavi’s web site has called on Iranians to use the state-sanctioned holiday to launch a three-day, nation-wide strike and boycott of businesses and banks in hopes of re-sparking the popular demonstrations that brought the country to a halt two weeks ago.

“The regime likes to defend its religious practices,” an aide and close confidant of Mousavi who wants to remain anonymous for his own protection told me. “We will use their religion to launch a widespread strike, to save Mousavi, and to annul the elections. [Itikaf] is something the regime has encouraged for years, so they can’t fight it.”
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Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran to investigate defiant Mousavi: Via Al Jazeera English - Middle East.

Iran's Basij militia has asked prosecutors to investigate the role of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated opposition candidate, in protests that broke out after the presidential election he maintains was rigged.

The government militia that enforced much of the crackdown against protesters last week, accused Mousavi of several crimes including undermining national security, which could see him jailed for up to 10 years.

The semi-official Fars news agency said the Basij sent the country's chief prosecutor a letter accusing Mousavi of taking part in nine offences against the state, including "disturbing the nation's security".
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"Whether he wanted to or not, Mr Mousavi in many areas supervised or assisted in punishable acts," said the Basij letter, which also accused Mousavi of bringing "pessimism" into the public sphere.