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  Date / Time: 7/25/2009 9:32 PM UTC

  Iran police disperse protests in Vanak and Mirdamad districts
  

  TEHRAN, Iran – Witnesses say Iranian police and pro-government militia have attacked and scattered hundreds of protesters in Iran's capital. One of the witnesses says the protests were in response to demonstrations held around the world calling for the Iranian government to release opposition activists. Protesters in Vanak and Mirdamad districts chanted "death to the dictator" and "we want our vote back" before they were attacked and beaten by police Saturday. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
  The opposition says that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the June 12 elections through fraud, sparking protests across the country. Hundreds of activists have since been imprisoned in the ensuing crackdown and at least 20 have died.
  
  THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
  
  TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's opposition leaders appealed to the top clerics in the holy city of Qom on Saturday to pressure the ruling Islamic regime to release protesters and activists who they say have been tortured following last month's disputed presidential election.
  
  The opposition hopes that enlisting the support of the clerics will provide an effective counterweight to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has dismissed the opposition's claims of fraud in the June 12 election.
  
  Khamenei has the final say over all state matters, but the nine clerics in Qom who hold the rank of "marja' taqlid," or "source of emulation," have great spiritual influence over many Iranians.
  
  The clerics normally congratulate the winners of presidential elections, but only one has done so this time. Three others have spoken out against the violent crackdown on hundreds of thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who took to the streets to dispute President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory.
  
  Mousavi, who claims he won the election, former President Mohammad Khatami and 67 other prominent reformists sent a letter to the clerics saying authorities have held protesters and activists without charges and have used torture to extract confessions.
  
  "We call on you, the marja' taqlid ... to remind the relevant authorities of the damaging consequences of employing unlawful methods and warn them about the spread of tyranny in the Islamic republic system," said the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.
  
  Mahdi Karroubi, a signatory to the letter and a candidate in the election, sent a letter of his own to Iran's intelligence chief describing the crackdown on protesters as worse than the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis.
  
  "What is happening to the people of Iran, especially the women, is deplorable," he wrote in his letter addressed to intelligence chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi.
  
  "Everyone has seen how the women have beaten with batons and thrown to the ground — this is worse than what the Zionist criminals are doing to the oppressed Palestinian people," he wrote.
  
  Karroubi's accusation is particularly potent because Iran's regime frequently focuses on the plight of the Palestinians and has repeatedly condemned Israel's policies in the occupied territories.
  
  At least 20 people in Iran were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters following the election, according to police, though rights groups fear the number could be much greater.
  
  Authorities still hold hundreds of people they arrested following the protests, including some top leaders of the reform movement — many of them detained in secret locations.
  
  Khamenei and his supporters have tried to depict the protesters as tools of foreign countries trying to spark a revolution to topple Iran's Islamic system.
  
  The U.S. and other Western countries have denied the allegations, but Iran's semi-official media has reported in recent weeks that prominent opposition activists have confessed to provoking riots to topple the regime.
  
  Intelligence chief Ejehi said earlier this week that some of the confessions will be broadcast on state television.
  
  The reformists criticized the regime's actions in the letter they sent to the clerics, saying "they have resorted to illegal, immoral and un-Islamic methods to obtain confessions."
  
  "What legal, Islamic or human rights code can justify the repeated torture of those who live under the banner of Islam?" it said.
  
  The letter said the repressive methods used to obtain confessions were reminiscent of the methods employed by Iran's former shah, who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
  
  "The only way out of this situation is to release all detainees and put an end to the security state imposed after the election," it said.
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