Iran's Mousavi to Ahmadinejad: “Our people have not given you the right to disgrace them”

This, along with his promises to boost women’s rights, is one reason his boisterous rallies have been well-attended by women, often sporting the bright-green colour that has become his symbol.

SHOOT: Well said.

clipped from www.economist.com Tipped as most likely to succeed is Mr Mousavi. Despite his dour professorial manner and absence from politics since his premiership during the grim years of the Iran-Iraq war, he has rallied powerful support with calls for wider freedoms, economic pragmatism and reduced tension with the outside world. “Our people have not given you the right to disgrace them,” he lectured Mr Ahmadinejad in one speech, saying that Iran’s global standing had fallen to the point where its passports were as unwelcome as those of Somalia. A trained architect and a talented painter, Mr Mousavi also happens to be of Azeri-Turkish origin, so he draws interest from the large, well integrated ethnic minority that dominates north-western Iran. Breaking with Iranian tradition, his wife, also an artist and a professor, has joined his campaign.