Report says Iranian presidential candidate's team arrested

PanARMENIAN.Net - Members of a moderate Iranian presidential candidate's campaign team were arrested on Saturday, June 2 an opposition website said, after a rally in which he criticized heightened security measures in the country.

Supporters of Hassan Rohani also shouted slogans in support of detained opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi at the rally in Tehran, according to a video of the event posted on YouTube.

Rohani's criticism could be seen as potentially inflammatory before the June 14 election which authorities hope to tightly control, eager to prevent a repeat of the mass protests after the 2009 poll.

Those protests, by the opposition "Green Movement" against what they saw as a fraudulent win for conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were crushed by security forces.

Mousavi, his wife, and fellow reformist Mehdi Karoubi have been under house arrest for over two years. Many activists have been jailed or have left Iran.

This year's list of eight presidential candidates, vetted by Iran's electoral watchdog, is dominated by hardline and conservative candidates close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Reuters reported.