Having already weighed in for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed elections, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said June 24 he is "completely sure" Ahmadinejad fairly won re-election, and that the protests in Tehran follow a pattern seen in other countries, where "behind it is the CIA and the imperial hand of European countries and the United States." (AP) In response, Venezuela's Revolutionary Marxist Current has issued a statement expressing solidarity with the Iranian protesters.

Bloody clashes were reported from Tehran June 24 as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he would not yield to pressure over the disputed election. The renewed confrontation took place in Baharestan Square, near parliament, where hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot police and other security personnel.

While the fate of dozens of recently detained students remains in limbo, students at several universities across Iran continue daily sit-ins and protests against what they are calling the "electoral coup" of June 12. Student sources say no information is available on the fate of 50 students who have been "kidnapped" from Tehran University. Meanwhile, Nasser Aminnejad, an engineering PhD candidate who was killed during the attack of plain-clothed forces on the Tehran University dormitories was buried in the city of Yasooj. A group of 57 law professors and attorneys issued a statement calling for punishment of "aggressors to the holy vicinity of university campuses and dormitories in cities across the nation, especially the Tehran University dormitories, and forces responsible for the beating of students." (Rooz Online, June 23)

Police again broke up protests in Tehran June 22, as the Revolutionary Guards warned they would crush "rioters" opposing the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "In the current sensitive situation...the Guards will firmly confront in a revolutionary way rioters and those who violate the law," said a statement on the Guards' website. Thestatement comes a day after pposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi called for continued protests. Ali Shahrokhi, head of parliament's judiciary committee, said Mousavi should be prosecuted for "illegal protests and issuing provocative statements." (Reuters, June 22)

More evidence both of electoral fraud and an internecine struggle among Iran's ruling clerics emerged this weekend, as security forces clashed with protesters in the streets of Tehran. On June 21, the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. They were apparently later released, but their arrests appeared to be a clear warning from the hard-line establishment to a cleric who may be aligning himself with the opposition. AP reports that the night of the 21st, Tehran's streets fell mostly quiet for the first time since the disputed June 12 election—but defiant cries of "God is great!" echoed again from rooftops after dark.

Conspiranoids and freedom-haters of the left and right alike are rushing to betray the Iranian protest movement. On the supposed "left," the retro-Stalinist Workers World and its International Action Center as well as (disappointingly) Monthly Review and the World Socialist Website have weighed in for Ahmadinejad and dissed the protesters as dupes or pawns of US imperialism. How interesting to see these supposed "leftists" making common cause with right-wing cheerleaders for authoritarian regimes...

Defying official threats and an intimidating police and paramilitary presence, protesters again took to the streets of Tehran June 20—although security forces this time prevented them from gathering in large numbers by massively occupying all public plazas and thoroughfares. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi appeared at a demonstration in south of the city and called for a general strike if he were to be arrested. "I am ready for martyrdom," he told supporters.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his Friday prayers address on the crisis in the country, blamed a world media controlled by "dirty Zionists" and "most evil" British for fomenting divisions, and called upon all Iranians to accept the election results, saying that a gap of 11 million votes is infallible. But his words also revealed a clear fault line within Iran's political elite. In his lengthy discourse on former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khamenei made insubstantial charges of corruption, and implicated the entire Rafsanjani family as "problematic."