TEHERAN - DEFEATED presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi formally appealed against Iran's election result on Sunday and called on his supporters to keep up their peaceful protests.
Mr Mousavi, heavily defeated in Friday's election by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in a statement on his website he had lodged an appeal with the Guardian Council, the top legislative body in the Islamic Republic.
'Today, I have submitted my official formal request to the council to cancel the election result,' Mr Mousavi said in the statement. 'I urge you Iranian nation to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way.'
Thousands of demonstrators have clashed with police in Teheran for two consecutive days since the hardline Ahmadinejad won Friday's vote, which Mr Mousavi said was marred by fraud and irregularities.
'We have asked officials to let us hold a nationwide rally to let people display their rejection of the election process and its results,' Mr Mousavi added. His supporters would continue to use the green campaign colour as a 'symbol of freedom, morality, religious wisdom and tolerance', he said.
A spokesman for Mr Mousavi said his newspaper, Kalameh-ye Sabz, and its website had been shut down.
'Unfortunately there has been a wide effort to cut all ways that we can connect with people,' Mr Mousavi said. 'I am sure that you people are so innovative that you will find new ways to connect each other to get results.'
Mobile telephone text services have also been interrupted in Teheran for several days, and the British Broadcasting Corporation said on Sunday that Iran was using 'heavy electronic jamming' to interrupt its widely watched BBC Persian television service.
Mr Mousavi said many Iranians were concerned that the events of recent days were endangering the 'achievement of the revolution', referring to the 1979 revolution which toppled the US-backed Shah.
'I am warning you that in this country, no one who supports the Islamic Republic will accept such a trend.' -- REUTERS
