Police fired tear gas to disperse opposition supporters who gathered for Friday prayers at Tehran University July 17. Presiding over the prayers was Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who took the occasion to call for the release of all those arrested in the recent protests. In his first Friday sermon since the vote, he also said large numbers of Iranians still doubted the election results. (BBC News, LAT, July 17) Meanwhile, Israel has sent two Saar-class missile ships through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, in what Israeli media are calling a "message" to Tehran. (The Telegraph, July 16)

Iran executed 13 members of the Sunni militant group Jundallah in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchistan province, July 14. Jundallah, which reportedly has up to 1,000 armed fighters, claims to fight against the Shi'ite regime's marginalization of Iran's 2 million ethnic Baluchis, who are mostly Sunni. Tehran blames the group for attacks including a mosque bombing in May that killed 25. Amnesty International had appealed for a stay of execution. (AFP, BBC News, July 14)

Some 300 protesters marched on Tehran University chanting "Death to the dictator!" before being dispersed by police who used tear gas and fired shots in the air. The march was held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of student protests that were put down by the Basij militia in 1999. The march was held in defiance of the threats from Tehran governor Morteza Tamaddon, who warned one day earlier: "If some individuals plan to have anti-security move through listening to a call by counter-revolutionary networks, they will be smashed under the feet of our aware people." (BBC News, AP, The Independent, July 9)

The Iranian government on July 1 prevented the publishing of the opposition Etemad-e-Melli newspaper in its latest move to quash anti-government reporting in the country. International journalists in the country have also been ordered to stay indoors. The newspaper is linked to opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi. Both he and candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have continued to criticize the government for both alleged election fraud and its harsh treatment of protesters and the press following the announcement that incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the highly-disputed election. In reaction to Mousavi's increasing criticism of the government, some in the government and its Basij security forces have called for his arrest, calling him a threat to national security. (Jurist, July 2)

Iran's Basij militia has asked prosecutors to investigate the role of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the protests that rocked the Islamic Republic after last month's contested elections. The government-backed militia that enforced much of the crackdown against protesters accused Mousavi of several crimes including undermining national security—which could see him imprisoned for up to 10 years.

Iran's Guardian Council June 29 confirmed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the disputed June 12 election as police and Basij militiamen wielding batons and cables prevented more than a thousand demonstrators from gathering to protest the results at various points around Tehran. "The Guardian Council, after studying the issues in numerous sessions, dismisses all the complaints received and approves the accuracy of the 10th presidential election," the chairman, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, was quoted as saying. A Council spokesman added: "The dossier of the...election has been closed today."

Iran's electoral authorities insisted June 26 the disputed presidential vote was the cleanest ever, as the G8 urged Tehran to halt repression—but without questioning the poll results. "After 10 days of examination, we did not see any major irregularities," Guardians Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai told the IRNA news agency. "We have had no fraud in any presidential election and this one was the cleanest election we have had. I can say with certainty that there was no fraud in this election."

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi said June 25 that threats and pressure would not stop him from pursuing his campaign to scrap the results of the disputed election. Meanwhile, officials stepped up efforts to crush remaining protests. "I won't refrain from securing the rights of the Iranian people... because of personal interests and the fear of threats," he said in a statement on his newspaper website, Kalemeh.