8 February 2010 / REUTERS, TEHRAN
Iran said on Sunday it had arrested seven people accused of stoking unrest after last year’s disputed election, including some who were hired by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The arrests were reported before possible new anti-government protests on Feb. 11, when Iran marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah. Opposition supporters have used such official occasions to try to revive their protests over the poll last June, which they say was rigged to secure the re-election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The authorities have rejected the vote fraud charge and portrayed the huge demonstrations that erupted after the vote as a foreign-backed attempt to undermine the Islamic Republic. They have made clear they will not tolerate more such unrest. Western countries have dismissed allegations of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. “Seven people organizationally linked to the counter-revolutionaries, the Zionist media and elements of the sedition have been arrested,” IRNA quoted an Intelligence Ministry statement as saying, without naming them. It said the detainees were also linked to a US-backed Farsi-language radio station and had received training in Istanbul and Dubai, for example in disrupting public order, spreading rumors and conducting sabotage.
