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Iran's moderate former President Mohammad Khatami continued to question the results of the June 12 presidential election, defying the nation's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said flatly last week that publicly voicing such doubts was illegal. 

"We should not decide for people," Khatami said in an a lengthy interview (in Persian) published today by Jamaran, a news website operated by the family of the Islamic Republic's revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"Nor should we restrict our people's choice and vote," he said. "Those who do not believe in the people's vote and even allow themselves to tamper with their votes or ignore them are unfamiliar with the Islamic Republic and revolution."

Khatami is a pillar of the country's battered reform movement and, along with presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, one of the three de facto figureheads of the opposition movement, which took to the streets again this week. 

All are under heavy surveillance and intense political pressure. Grass-roots opposition activists h... >>>