Iran riot police clash with protesters near parliament

Armed Iranian security forces clashed with some 200 pro-reform demonstrators outside the parliament building in Tehran on Wednesday, but no casualties were reported.

Riot police and militia volunteers gathered near the parliament armed with batons and tear gas to deter the protesters from their planned to protest.

According to an Iranian blogger who witnessed the event, police bearing guns and riot gear attacked unarmed demonstrators. The New York Times quoted his post as saying: "They were waiting for us - they all have guns and riot uniforms - it was like a mouse trap - ppl [sic] being shot like animals."

Amateur videos posted on YouTube by people saying it was taken at protests on Wednesday showed groups of young people chanting on a Tehran street. One showed men and women throwing rocks and pushing barricades, one blazing, in the street. Others shouted: "Death to the dictator!"

The time and place the videos were taken could not be immediately confirmed due to restrictions on foreign media in Iran.

A helicopter could be seen hovering over central Tehran. A witness who walked through Baharestan Square in front of the parliament building around 7 P.M. three hours after the scheduled start of the protest, told The Associated Press it was swarmed by hundreds of riot police who did not allow people to even briefly gather.

Thousands more security officers filled the surrounding streets, said the witness, who declined to give his name for fear of government reprisals.

Severe restrictions on reporters have made it almost impossible to independently verify reports on demonstrations, clashes and casualties. Iran has ordered journalists for international news agencies to stay in their offices, barring them from reporting on the streets.

Iranian authorities have arrested 25 journalists linked to defeated refortmist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, AFP reported on Wednesday.

Mousavi's official Web site had declared earlier in the day that a protest was planned for the venue on Wednesday afternoon, despite an official ban on the rallies.

The Web site distanced Mousavi from the demonstration, calling it independent and not organized by the reformist leader.

The mixed messages reflected the dilemma facing the unlikely opposition leader, a longtime supporter of Iran's government thrust to the head of a pro-democracy protest movement.

Mousavi, a former prime minister, saw his campaign transform into a protest movement after the government declared that hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the overwhelming winner of the June 12 election.

Mousavi and his supporters claim massive fraud tilted the election and want the vote to be canceled and held again. The final tally gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 percent to Mousavi, a landslide victory in a race that had been perceived as much closer. Rezaie came in third.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the protests to end, leaving Mousavi with the choice of restraining followers or continuing to directly challenge the country's ultimate authority despite threats of escalating force.

Khamenei announced on Wednesday that the government would not give in to pressures over the disputed presidential election, effectively closing the door to compromise with the opposition.

"Neither the system nor the people will give in to pressures at any price," Khamenei said in a meeting with lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Iranian state television said on Wednesday a partial recount of the vote in the country's disputed June 12 presidential election had verified the result.

Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, on Wednesday called on the establishment to immediately release Iranians detained at election protests, his website reported and compared the current crackdown to "martial law."

"I regret the arrest of many politicians and people and want their immediate release ... It is my duty to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights," Zahra Rahnavard was quoted by the website as saying.

She also criticized the presence of armed forces in the streets.

Government tallies have shown that at least 627 people have been arrested in Tehran since the elections. Some state media have reported 17 protesters killed by security forces. Other state reports give the number as 27, said Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

State-run TV confirmed the arrest of Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek national reporting for the Washington Times. It was the first known arrest of a journalist who did not hold Iranian citizenship, Ghaemi said, calling it a significant escalation of the attempt to repress independent reporting by a government that shied away from arresting foreign journalists in recent years.

Ghaemi said he believes the number of dead is much higher, based on conversations with hospital workers, witnesses and relatives of victims in Iran.

Another opposition figure, reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karoubi, called for a day of mourning for those killed in protests since the election. Some social networking sites suggested that the mourning would take place Thursday.

Mousavi's informal spokesman outside Iran, filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, said in Rome that even if Ahmadinejad manages to govern for the next four years, he will not have one day of quietness, with protesters resorting to general strikes and civil resistance.