Iranians arrest British embassy staff over riots

June 28, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

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TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran has arrested eight local British embassy staff, media reports said on Sunday, a move that will further exacerbate strained ties with the West over the post-election turmoil in the Islamic republic.

It is the latest retaliatory action against Britain, which Iran has accused of stoking the unrest that swept the country after the disputed election that returned hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

“Eight members of the local staff at the British embassy who had a considerable role in the recent riots have been arrested,” the Fars news agency said without quoting a source.

Last week, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned that Iran may downgrade ties with Britain, after the two governments expelled diplomats in a tit-for-tat move.

Iran has also expelled the BBC correspondent in Tehran and arrested a British-Greek journalist, as well as a number of other British passport-holders it says were involved in rioting.

The latest backlash against the West came as opposition leaders in Iran kept up their defiance of the regime, rejecting a panel set up to hold a partial recount of ballots cast in the June 12 vote.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s strongest rival, is still insisting on a new vote while another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, has demanded an independent panel to probe irregularities.

Their defiance flies in the face of the nation’s top political arbitration body the Expediency Council, which has urged all candidates to cooperate with the panel set up by the electoral watchdog the Guardians Council.

The streets of Tehran appeared quiet on Sunday, with the authorities warning they would suppress any further protests over the vote that triggered the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Facing its biggest threat in 30 years, the Islamic regime has sought to quell the disquiet over the election results by ordering a partial recount.

The Guardians Council, an unelected body of 12 jurists and clerics, said Friday it would create a special committee of political figures and candidate representatives to recount 10 percent of the ballots and draw up a report on the vote.

But Karroubi, a reformist former parliament speaker who came a distant fourth, said in a letter to the Guardians Council that a partial recount was “not enough” and called for an independent panel to probe “all aspects of the election.”

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