Iran election: Guardian Council admits vote was flawed

The admission was made as the main presidential challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, implored supporters to renew street protests in Tehran on Monday and defy the threat of a brutal crackdown by the security forces.

Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday.

The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally.

The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters but the discrepancy was not sufficent to account for Mr Ahmadinejad's margin of victory.

Mr Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 10 people were killed in the Iranian capital. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal.

But Mr Mousavi said: "The country belongs to you ... protesting lies and fraud is your right."

The former prime minister warned supporters of the danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times". But he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board, not the Guardian Council.

A former president, Mohammad Khatami, backed the call. "Protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that," he said.

Meanwhile the authorities released the daughter of another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Faezeh Hashemi was detained while travelling to a Mousavi rally on Saturday. Officials said she and several other relatives were held for their own safety.

Iran's foreign ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of "a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World".

"Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable," he said.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Bahrain shut down a newspaper after it published a claim that Mr Ahmadinejad is of Jewish origin.

Samira Rajab, an MP made the allegation in Akhbar Al-Khaleej and the paper, the Gulf state's oldest, was found guilty of violating the country's press code.