Iran says courts will teach protesters a lesson

By Zahra Hosseinian and Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities said they would teach a lesson to "rioters" held in the worst unrest to befall the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A moderate cleric defeated in this month's disputed elections called on Iranians to hold ceremonies on Thursday to mourn those killed at protests over the last week.

Trucks and police in riot gear were deployed on the main squares of Tehran on Tuesday, but there were no signs of any protest gatherings in the city by midday.

The Revolutionary Guard, loyal to the country's conservative religious establishment, have declared a crackdown on protests triggered by elections that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. Hundreds have been detained by police using tear gas and batons since results were published on June 13.

"Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," the official IRNA news agency quoted senior judiciary official Ebrahim Raisi as saying on state television late on Monday.

He said a special court was studying the cases.

"The rioters should be dealt with in an exemplary way and the judiciary will do that," Raisi said.

Two losing candidates, ex-prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, accuse authorities of vote rigging and have demanded a rerun. But the top legislative body, the Guardian Council, ruled this out again on Tuesday.