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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian riot police clashed with hundreds of pro-reform protesters in central Tehran on Tuesday and detained dozens of them, a witness said, in the latest unrest over last month's disputed election.

The witness said police beat protesters who had gathered in Tehran's Haft-e Tir square

Karroubi was certainly not the first senior figure to protest Mojtaba Khamenei’s intervention on behalf of the extreme right. Before him, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, another former Speaker of the Majles and a close aid to Ayatollah Khamenei, had quietly protested the younger Khamenei’s meddling in the political process. (Nategh Nouri, a mid-rank cleric, heads the Supreme Leader’s Office of Inspection)

In the last year before the 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei and two other clerics, Abbas Vaez Tabasi and Sayyed Abdolkarim Hasheminejad, formed a sort of leadership ring that led most of the demonstrations and political activities against the Shah in Mashhad and the Khorasan province, which was Iran’s largest province at that time.

Vaez Tabasi is now a powerful cleric who runs the shrine of Imam Reza (the Shiites’ 8th Imam), in Mashhad. He is believed to be a Rafsanjani ally.

The opposition website Rooz Online carried what it said was an interview with a man the government had shipped in to Tehran to quell the demonstrations. He said he was being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protesters with a heavy wooden stave, and that other volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces, were being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran.

. In December 2008, the Office of the Tehran Public Prosecutor announced the formation of a “special office to review Internet- and SMS-related crimes and violations”, stating that the office would review election campaign violations and “offensive remarks”made by SMS. These measures may in part be intended to stifle debate, prevent the organization of peaceful demonstrations, and to silence critics of the authorities in advance of the election.

The arrest on 19 April 2009 by officers of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran of Mehdi Mo’tamedi Mehr, a member of the Committee to Defend Free, Healthy and Fair Elections and a member of the Freedom Movement, a banned political party. Prior to his arrest he had been telephoned by a Ministry of Intelligence official and told that publication of a statement entitled “Civil Society Institution as Election Observers: An Assurance toward Free, Healthy and Fair Elections” by the Committee would be an act against national security. The statement was published anyway, and he was arrested. He has been accused of “acting against state security”. On 29 April, security forces prevented other members of the committee from holding a meeting in the “Raad” Legal Institute which belongs to Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a prominent lawyer and member of the High Oversight Council of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders (CHRD). The CHRD was forcibly closed in December 2008 and has not been allowed to reopen.

At least three Amir Kabir University students who remain detained without trial in Section 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran following their arrests in February 2009. O

6.15pm: Iranian filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf just held a press conference in Brussels to say they have a document proving election fraud, Adnkronos news agency reports.The document, seen here, says that Mousavi won the election with 19m votes, with cleric Mehdi Karroubi coming in second and Ahmadinejad coming in third. Satrapi and Makhmalbaf said the document had come from the Iranian electoral commission, and is dated June 13, the day after the election.

Saeed reports that Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard today joined injured students at Tehran University, and condemened violence by the government and riot police.

A friend of the Guardian in Tehran writes that her Gmail account has been filtered, and that her internet service provider said it has been ordered to cut all emails, messaging software and many websites, especially foreign news outlets.

"It wasn't about elections anymore," says Mr. Moradani, a short, skinny man with pitch-black hair and a beard. "I was defending my country and our revolution and Islam. Everything was at risk."

They collected rocks, tiles and bricks from construction sites and spilled oil on the roads, an attempt to sideline the Basij's motorcycles. When a Basij rider would go down, the young men would beat him, according to the student. Women stood back, screaming "Death to the Dictator" and stoking bonfires in the street. Older supporters remained indoors, throwing ashtrays, vases and other household items from their balconies and windows onto the Basij motorcycle riders below.

He says he hopes one day to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Revolutionary Guard. He has taken the Guard's rigorous entrance exam twice, passing the ideology and the written portions both times. But he failed the final hurdle: an intense interview that lasts six to eight hours. Applicants must discuss why they are loyal to the regime and the Supreme Leader. He intends to try again.

The morning after Iran's June 12 presidential election, Iranians booted up their computers to find Fars News, the online mouthpiece of the Islamic Republic's security apparatus, heralding the dawn of a "third revolution." Many an ordinary Iranian, and many a Western pundit, had already adopted such dramatic language to describe the burgeoning street demonstrations against the declaration by the Ministry of Interior that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the sitting president, had received 64 percent of the vote to 34 percent for his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the editors of Fars News were referring neither to the protests, as were the people in the streets, nor to the prospect that the unrest might topple the Islamic Republic, as were some of the more wistful commentators. Rather, the editors were labeling the radical realignment of Iranian politics that they wish for. This realignment would complete the removal of the old guard, as did the "first" revolution of 1978-1979, and consolidate the rule of inflexible hardliners, as did the "second revolution" symbolized by the US Embassy takeover of 1979.

The number of deeply conservative voters, of the sort who back Ahmadinejad, has not exceeded 12 percent of the electorate since 1993. True, in 2003, these voters seized control of the city councils of major cities, not because of a surge in the popularity of their agenda, but because of the widespread abstention of those who had lost hope in the effectiveness of reformist candidates.

But instead greater mass participation in the local elections of 2007 cost the hardliners their grip upon local councils. In Tehran, Ahmadinejad's men lost two thirds of their seats and had to share power with reformists and moderate conservatives.

we have not put any development project on hold. We decide on a project and push for its completion.

Shora-Yaari, or assisting councils.

We have divided Tehran into 380 neighbourhoods with defined geography. People have elected their representatives to these councils to take over some development work. The work might be small-scale but is important. This helps people take part [in the city’s development] from their doorstep.

Tehran Bureau: Faulty Election Data The best evidence for the validity of the arguments of the three opponents of the President for rejecting the results declared by the Interior Ministry is the data the Ministry itself has issued. In the chart below, compiled based on the data released by the Ministry and announced by Iran’s national television, a perfect linear relation between the votes received by the President and Mir Hossein Mousavi has been maintained, and the President’s vote is always half of the President’s…. Statistically and mathematically, it is impossible to maintain such perfect linear relations between the votes of any two candidates in any election — and at all stages of vote counting. This is particularly true about Iran, a large country with a variety of ethnic groups who usually vote for a candidate who is ethnically one of their own.

But, just a few hours later, a center that had been set up by Mr. Mousavi in Gheytarieh (in northern Tehran) for monitoring the election and vote counting, was attacked by armed security agents. They ransacked the center, destroyed computers, and attacked the staff. Supporters of Mr. Mousavi intervened and arrested 8 security agents. The police was called to take them to prison, but the police released the attackers.

Mr. Makhbalbaf then declared that, “I have been authorized by Mr. Mousavi’s campaign to officially declare that a political coup has taken place, in order to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the victor.”

Strangers chatted about what Rafsanjani might say and expressed happiness at the turnout. The non-religious asked the religious about how to execute namaz (prayers). For many, it was their first time at this decades-long public ritual.

Some in the crowd, obviously novices unfamiliar with the conventions of Friday Prayer, began applauding and whistling. Pro-Mousavi unity aside, I feared that the religious men and women sitting nearby would take offense at this inappropriate behavior. But they merely tittered — and astonishingly, the cleric was clapping along!

Another phenomenal spectacle, a first in the history of Friday Prayers in Iran (and perhaps in a large part of the Muslim world), men and women were not segregated. Thy prayed side by side. This did not appear to offend the religious-minded; they seemed to accept the situation. Women and girls who by Sharia law can pray only when covered with a prayer-chador were doing so in short manteaux, and this too did not upset the religious-minded. In fact, they were probably happy to see non-religious girls and women praying at all.

13:41 Rafsanjani is getting teary. “The prophet respected the rights of all those under his rule.” He brings an example from the end of the prophet’s life where the prophet comes to the people and asks that if he ever treated anyone unfairly, they speak up and let him know.

13:46 The prophet went to Baghi [where his old friends were buried] and said to them: you are lucky that you are no longer here to see that your old brothers are killing and destroying one another.

13:54 Rafsanjani condemns China. People chanted “Death to China” . He asks that people stop their chants.

working hard to establish a public profile apart from hardliners led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and from progressives led by aggrieved presidential challenger Mir Hussein Mousavi.

The Larijani coalition is also gaining the backing of so-called traditionalists among the Islamic clergy. So far, the new faction has not enunciated a philosophical platform,

Ali Larijani is emerging as the public face of the faction, but behind him stand his very influential brothers and other relatives, according to a well-connected source. One of Larijani’s brothers is Sadegh, who is one of the 12 members of the powerful Guardian Council. Another is Mohammad Javad, a physicist and prominent political strategist. The Larijanis’ cousin, Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent rightist politician and a member of parliament, is also believed to be an important player in the faction, as is Ali Motahari, another prominent rightist political operator who is Ali Larijani’s son-in-law.

hundreds of activists, journalists and intellectuals

concerted campaign to link the protests with foreign intervention

With the exception of Yazdi, the arrests appeared to bypass political leaders and focus on their lieutenants.

During a campaign gathering in Tehran, the hardline head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, threw his support to Mr. Ahmadinejad, as well.

Karroubi has gained some notoriety among the four candidates for proposing a novel economic plan which would grant shares in Iran's oil wealth to all Iranian citizens.

An interesting thing is that Mehdi Karroubi is not alone in his campaign photo (see above). He is pictured with the former mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbasschi's in the circle just behind him. Perhaps the “change” slogan is not the only thing that Karroubi borrowed from the U.S. election. Has he created himself an unofficial running mate?

Four interior ministry officials have been arrested for given results that were different from those announced by Ahmadinejad’s allies.

Four of the leading pro-reform newspapers have been closed or prevented from criticising the official election results

A member of a TV crew working for the Italian station RAI and a Reuters reporter were beaten by police in the capital. A BBC TV crew was threatened by police at one point, but demonstrators chased the police away. The correspondents of the German TV stations ARD and ZDF were forbidden to leave their hotel on 13 June.

n early March when parliament, in an unprecedented move in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history, rebuffed the president’s move to lift state subsidies on essential items, including electricity and bread, and offset the higher prices with straight cash handouts to needy citizens.

When the president insisted on an "all-or-nothing" version of his subsidy plan, parliament had little choice but to reject the project, although the legislature did end up passing a $279 billion preliminary budget.

out-of-control spending has blown a gaping hole in the budget so that the country will face an estimated budget deficit of $46 billion.