Iran's Former President Calls for Protesters' Release

Tens of thousands gathered around Iran's Tehran University as former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called on the government to release the protesters arrested since Iran's disputed presidential election in June.

CNN reports Rafsanjani said: "Let the enemy not laugh at us and criticize us. We must sympathize with those who have suffered damages. The system cannot lose them. If the system reapproaches them they will come back to us." As Rafsanjani spoke as part of a Friday prayer service, police were aiming tear gas at protesters outside.

Rafsanjani is not the first influential political figure to criticize the government response to public furor over the election -- the politically powerful Teachers of Qum recently released a statement calling the elections "illegitimate" -- but, he is unique in the position he holds. Rafsanjani heads the council that appointed and has the power to oust Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rafsanjani lost the election in 2005 that brought current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to power and is a supporter of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousav, who was present at Friday's prayer. But, until now, he had not spoken out strongly on the issue of the government's response. With the Ayatollah having intertwined his own political destiny so tightly with Ahmadinejad and thrown his own credibility behind him, it is doubtful whether Khamenei would or could back away from his support of the president.