The head of the political bureau of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said defeated challengers should be prosecuted for the recent riots. Current European Union president Sweden criticizes trials of EU embassy staffers. A senior general of the Iranian revolutionary guards has said that top opposition leaders should be tried for having planned a coup against the Islamic establishment following the June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the official news agency IRNA reported Sunday. Yadollah Javani, head of the guards' political bureau, demanded that Mir-Hossein Moussavi, former president Mohammad Khatami and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi be put on trial.
Javani said that as Moussavi, Khatami and Karroubi were the main elements behind the unrest over the June 12 presidential vote, they should be arrested, tried and punished. Since the post-election protest movements, Khatami, Moussavi, Karroubi and also ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani have become the leading opposition quartet.
In further criticism of the opposition from a senior establishment figure, General Massoud Jazayeri, a deputy commander of the Iranian Army, warned Sunday the next "coup" against Iran would be via the foreign media. "Right after the failure of the Green Coup, the foreign elements and their agents inside have started programming the next phase of the coup against Iran," he was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency. The Green Coup refers to the reform movement of Moussavi, who had chosen the color as symbol for change in Iran.