DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A website long associated with detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has quoted him as comparing a crackdown on protesters under Iran’s supreme leader to another carried out under the country’s ousted shah.
The comments published Saturday represent some of the harshest yet attributed to Mousavi, a 77-year-old politician whose disputed election loss in 2009 led to widespread protests before being put down by security forces.
The foreign website Kaleme quoted Mousavi as comparing the crackdown on gasoline price protesters under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to when soldiers of the shah opened fire on protesters in 1978, which fueled the unrest that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, remain under house arrest in their home down an alleyway near Khamenei’s official residence in Tehran.