Iran Limits Movements Of An Opposition Leader

Iranian security forces have limited the movements of a leading opposition figure by refusing to protect him when he leaves his home, his son said Tuesday as authorities broadened their crackdown with a new wave of arrests that included the sister of Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Iran's worst internal violence in three decades has grown increasingly violent and bitter in the wake of clashes Sunday that left at least eight people dead. Security forces also arrested a relative of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi on Tuesday, while government supporters held rallies in at least three cities.

Iran accused the U.S. and Britain of fomenting the violence, threatening to "slap" Britain in the face as it summoned the British ambassador to an urgent meeting.

The son of leading opposition figure Mahdi Karroubi told The Associated Press by telephone that guards assigned to his father by Iranian police stopped on Monday providing security for him when he goes out, apparently under police orders. Police have for years provided leading opposition figures with security.

Taghi Karroubi said the measure means his father cannot go outside safely, calling it a "quasi-house arrest." If Karroubi does go out unprotected he risks attack by hardline government supporters. His car was attacked on Saturday when he went out, and the assailants shattered his front windshield.

Karroubi and opposition leader Mousavi were the two defeated reformist candidates in the disputed June 12 presidential election, which set off the worst unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The new arrests, along with tough criticism of the U.S. and Britain, added to rising tensions with the West, which is threatening to impose tough new sanctions over Iran's suspect nuclear program and has criticized the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shrugged off Sunday's protests as "a play ordered by Zionists and Americans" and criticized Barack Obama and Britain for allegedly supporting the protesters.

"The Iranian nation has witnessed this sort of play many times," Ahmadinejad said, according to the state IRNA news agency.

Sunday's clashes were the worst since the aftermath of June's disputed presidential election.

There was no serious violence reported Tuesday, but the opposition Greenroad Web site said students and security forces clashed at the Azad University's science department in Tehran. It cited witnesses as saying the students were later "locked down" inside the building while pro-government Basij militiamen threatened to arrest those who dare leave the premises.

Opposition Web sites reported some 10 new arrests, including Dr. Noushin Ebadi.

Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights efforts in Iran, has stayed outside of Iran since a day before the June elections. She told The Associated Press in a phone interview from London that Iranian authorities were trying to punish her by arresting her sister.

She said she called her sister Monday, and that she was being punished because of the conversation.

"She was warned not to contact me," Ebadi said. "She is detained for the sake of me. She was neither politically active nor had a role in any rally."

Noushin Ebadi, a medical professor at Tehran's Azad Medical University - which has a similar name but is a separate from the university where Tuesday's clash occurred - was arrested at her home by four intelligence agents late Monday and sent to prison, according to a statement issued by the Nobel laureate. It said authorities had "repeatedly summoned" Noushin to get her to persuade Shirin to drop her civil rights campaign.

The Greenroad Web site also reported additional arrests, among them Mousavi's brother-in-law, Shapour Kazemi, and Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a journalist who frequently criticizes the government. Others included the son of a prominent ayatollah, a reporter for the semiofficial ILNA news agency, and several activists. Mousavi's nephew was among those killed this week.

At a news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the deadly clashes in Tehran were the work of a tiny minority, and he accused outside countries, including the U.S. and Britain, of "miscalculating" by siding with the protesters.

"Some Western countries are supporting this sort of activities. This is intervention in our internal affairs. We strongly condemn it," he said.

He gave no further details, but Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki threatened unspecified retaliation against Britain. "If this country does not stop its prattling, it will receive a slap in its face," he said during a news conference with his Somali counterpart. The quote was posted on the Web site of state TV.

Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. have criticized Iran's violent response to the protests. On Monday, President Barack Obama praised "the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people" while condemning Iran's Islamic government for attacking demonstrators with "the iron fist of brutality."

Traveling with Obama in Hawaii, U.S. National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough also said the White House is reaching out to international partners to build support for a new round of sanctions against Iran. The sanctions are to punish Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and accept a U.S.-backed plan to curb its nuclear program. The West suspects Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb - a charge Tehran denies.

The exact death toll from Sunday's violence is still not clear. The government had said eight people were killed, but on Tuesday, Tehran's chief prosecutor said he was investigating only seven deaths.

One reason for the confusion is that the government has taken the bodies of five slain protesters, including Mousavi's nephew, in what appears to be an attempt to prevent activists from using their funerals as a platform for more demonstrations. The bodies remained at a coroner's office Tuesday while the government said it was still conducting autopsies.

In outbursts of fury rarely seen in past street confrontations, they burned squad cars and motorcycles belonging to security forces who had opened fire on the crowds, according to witness accounts, opposition Web sites and amateur videos posted on the Web.