Ahmadinejad recently dismissed his opponents as “dust and pebbles”:
Addressing a crowd of his supporters in his victory speech, President Ahmadinejad praised the nation for re-electing him, saying the election results reflected his public support.
“The Iranian nation is united. In a football match, there are some 50 to 70 thousand spectators. Those spectators whose team has lost become angry and do anything [to express their anger]. In Iran’s election, the 40 million were the players themselves. Some dust and pebbles, however, are up to something. Beware that the transparent river of the Iranian nation will not allow them to shine.”
His remarks were interpreted as an insult to supporters of the other three candidates, who remain unhappy about the results.
A senior member of the Islamic Coalition Party and a leading figure of the Principlist camp, on Wednesday, criticized President Ahmadinejad for his remarks, saying it was not decent for a president to ‘insult’ those rejecting the results of the election.
Habibollah Asgaroladi, a former minister of commerce who had advocated Ahmadinejad’s candidacy as the single representative of the Principlist camp for the June 12th election, added that such statements run counter to Islamic teachings.
“One who imagines that his preferences and the preferences of those around him are right and all the others are wrong, and look at the others as ‘dust and pebbles’ — irrespective of his rank — that person has ceased to be a servant of God. For God has told His servants to have the most respectful dialogue with each other.”
Interestingly, that criticism is published on the Press TV website. He has since attempted to apologise:
I only addressed those who made riot, set fires and attacked people. Every single Iranian is valuable. The government is at everyone’s service. We like everyone.
They like them so much, they’ll interfer with the medical treatment for injuries they inflicted:
The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said Sunday that scores of injured protesters who had sought medical treatment after Saturday’s clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital.
It said doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities, and that some seriously injured protesters had sought refuge at foreign embassies in a bid to evade arrest.
“The arrest of citizens seeking care for wounds suffered at the hands of security forces when they attempted to exercise rights guaranteed under their own constitution and international law is deplorable,” said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the campaign, denouncing the alleged arrests as “a sign of profound disrespect by the state for the well-being of its own people.”
“The government of Iran should be ashamed of itself. Right now, in front of the whole world, it is showing its violent actions,” he said.
