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Mousavi's wife blasts arrests

TEHRAN, Iran - The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said yesterday that her brother was among the hundreds arrested in Iran's postelection crackdown and denounced a campaign by authorities to depict the protesters and opposition movement as tools of foreign enemies.

TEHRAN, Iran - The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said yesterday that her brother was among the hundreds arrested in Iran's postelection crackdown and denounced a campaign by authorities to depict the protesters and opposition movement as tools of foreign enemies.

Zahra Rahnavard said her brother, Shapour Kazemi, 62, was arrested more than a month ago. She said the communications engineer was "apolitical" and was detained only to put pressure on her and her husband.

"We have tried all legal and peaceful means to try to win the release of him and other detainees," Rahnavard told the ILNA news agency in an interview released yesterday.

Mousavi himself warned that the country was becoming "more militarized" amid the turmoil.

He implicitly accused the security forces of exceeding their powers under Iran's constitution, suggesting thre was a "near-coup d'etat atmosphere" in the country.

Police, the elite Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij militia arrested more than 2,500 people in a crackdown on protests that erupted in support of Mousavi after the disputed June 12 election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, backed by the country's supreme leader, claimed a huge victory.

More than 500 remain in prison, including many top politicians from pro-reform political parties, human-rights lawyers, journalists, and activists. Arrests have continued in recent weeks.

The turmoil is the biggest challenge to Iran's ruling clerics in decades, and the Revolutionary Guards force has taken a prominent role in defending the leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday said the upheaval had made it unlikely Iran would respond any time soon to the Obama administration's attempts to engage in a dialogue.

"We've certainly reached out and made it clear that's what we'd be willing to do, even now, despite our absolute condemnation of what they've done in the election and since," she told the BBC. "But I don't think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now."

Mousavi alleges Ahmadinejad's victory was fraudulent. Hundreds of thousands of his supporters marched in protests in the weeks after the election, until the demonstrations were shattered by force.

Police said at least 20 protesters were killed; human-rights groups said the number was likely far higher.

Some hard-line officials have alleged that detainees have confessed to fueling protests at the behest of foreign powers. The opposition has said any such confessions were made under duress.

Rahnavard said the Iranian people would not believe any "forced confessions." Of the charges against her brother, she said: "Accusations of provoking riots or connections to foreigners . . . are unimaginable."

Rahnavard had campaigned alongside her husband, a rarity in Iran, becoming a star among women and student supporters.