Iran’s opposition leader says corrupt dictatorship is ruling country in the name of Islam

Iran’s opposition leader assails ruling clerics

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s opposition leader says “corrupt despotic rulers” are running the country in the name of Islam.

The comment by Mir Hossein Mousavi is his strongest to date against Iran’s hard-line clerical leadership, although he has often criticized the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mousavi also says his Green Movement will keep raising public awareness as its main strategy in the face of the authorities’ bloody crackdown. His website posted the comments late Sunday.

The opposition argues that Ahmadinejad won the June 2009 election through massive vote fraud and that Mousavi was the rightful winner. More than 80 demonstrators have been killed and hundreds of activists and pro-reform figures arrested in the post-election crackdown on the opposition.