Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the protesters to halt their marches and ridiculed the vote-fraud allegations as he stood strongly behind Ahmadinejad in his Friday prayer sermon.
But the Guardian Council, whose members are appointed directly or indirectly by Khamenei, had earlier indicated that the vote count was indeed problematic. An initial probe showed that the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of registered voters in 50 locales, a discrepancy affecting 3 million votes or more.
Chatham House, a British think tank, published a study over the weekend in which it found irregularities by comparing Iranian presidential voting in 2009 and 2005 against the 2006 census published by the official Statistical Center of Iran. The report finds that two conservative provinces reported turnouts of more than 100% and that in a third of all provinces, this year's official results would have meant Ahmadinejad won not only all the conservative voters from 2005, but also the centrist voters from then and all new voters -- as well as 44% of reformist voters.
Iran, under pressure from the West for its pursuit of advanced nuclear technology and support of Arab militant groups opposed to Israel, continues to reel from days of protests that culminated in chaotic fighting Saturday between security forces and demonstrators.
The fighting came after Khamenei ordered demonstrators off the streets in a prayer sermon interpreted as a call to semiofficial pro-government vigilantes to crack down on the rallies.
Iranian authorities have blamed the West for stirring up the unrest. In public statements and television broadcasts, they have particularly targeted Britain, which launched the popular BBC Persian-language news channel this year.
Following threats and the expulsion of the BBC Tehran bureau chief, the British Embassy ordered the families of its expatriate staff out of the country Monday.
"CNN and the BBC have set up a psychological war room," Hasan Qashqavi, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, told reporters at a news conference broadcast on state television.
"As for BBC Persian and the VOA [Voice of America], their case is obvious," he said. "Their objectives are, A, to weaken national solidarity and, B, to threaten Iran's territorial integrity and divide Iran. This is the approved agenda that was promulgated to the VOA and BBC Persian, after their budgets were approved by the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress."
