Mousavi Web site: 70 professors detained in Iran

 http://www.pr-inside.com/mousavi-web-site-70-professors-detained-rm1345209.htm

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.
Seventy university professors were detained in Iran in a widening government crackdown on protesters, according to a Web site affiliated with Iran's key opposition figure, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says he was robbed of victory in a rigged presidential election.
Hundreds of protesters and activists are believed to have been taken into custody since the June 12 vote, in which Iran's ruling clerics declared hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner by a landslide.
Ahmadinejad dismissed growing Western criticism of the post-election clampdown, singling out President Barack Obama. «Why has Mr. Obama, who advocates change, been trapped and follows the same path as Bush,» state TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
In recent days, demonstrators challenging the election results found themselves increasingly struggling under a blanket crackdown. A march of mourning for the at least 17 people killed in the protests _ initially set for Thursday _ has been put off for at least a week, according to a Web site linked with the organizer, reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, saying organizers had not been given permission to hold the gathering.
Still, the most senior dissident cleric in Iran, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, warned the authorities in a statement that trying to snuff out dissent would prove to be futile.

If people are not allowed to voice their demands in peaceful gatherings, it «could destroy the foundation of any government,» regardless of its power, wrote Montazeri, who was the heir apparent to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until falling out of favor with the ruling clerics by questioning their almost limitless powers. Montazeri spent five years under house arrest in the city of Qom, a center of clerical power and Shiite Islamic learning.
Montazeri also called for a neutral body to investigate the claims of election fraud, though Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated Wednesday previous statements that the election will not be reversed.
The final tally was 62.6 percent of the vote for Ahmadinejad and 33.75 percent for Mousavi, a lopsided victory in a race that was perceived to be much closer.
The disputed election has caused a rift among former Ahmadinejad supporters. Several Tehran newspapers reported Thursday that only 105 out of 290 members of parliament attended a victory celebration held by Ahmadinejad on Tuesday. Among the no-shows was Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.
Still, the opposition campaign seems to have lost some momentum. Mousavi has not led rallies in a week, and on his Web site, he's refrained from urging supporters to attend protests.

On Wednesday, he met with 70 university professors, said the Web site, Kalemeh. The professors, among a group pushing for a more liberal form of government, were detained after the meeting, the site said. It was not clear where they were taken, the report said.
The detentions, if confirmed, would signal that the authorities are increasingly targeting members of Iran's elite.
Laub reported from Cairo.