Word: claimed
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...Authorities in Tehran claim that isn't the half of it. After weekend clashes between security forces and protesters pushed the official death toll from 10 to 17, Iranian police accused the NCRI and its "terrorist" supporters of fomenting the violence. As evidence, Iran said several NCRI-linked operatives had been arrested after smuggling guns and explosives into the country and carrying out "terrorist acts." On Sunday, the NCRI dismissed the story and mocked what it called the "preposterous and threadbare claims to justify the suppression and killings inside Iran." Those claims were designed, the group said, to mask...
...group's officials disagree. They claim the NCRI has thousands of members in Europe and North America. As evidence, they point to a rally outside Paris on Saturday that drew as many as 90,000 people to protest the situation in Iran. NCRI leaders are also quick to point out that the organization supplied information from inside Iran that was pivotal in documenting Tehran's military nuclear ambitions - a fact acknowledged by Western diplomats. (Read "Joe Klein: What I Saw at the Revolution...
...restored some of the group's ability to operate inside the country. Operatives there, he says, are busy gathering intelligence and organizing to undermine the regime. According to Mohaddessin, sympathizers secretly monitored more than half the polling stations during the presidential election, providing the NCRI with enough information to claim that scarcely 15% of Iranian voters bothered casting ballots at all, a number at odds with the reportedly massive turnout seen by foreign media and other observers and the government figure that put participation at 85%. (See five reasons to suspect Iran's election results...
...Canada and European Union put the MEK on terrorism blacklists nearly a decade ago. Those governments also alleged that the NCRI was essentially the political arm of the MEK, a claim the NCRI says misrepresents the relationship between the two groups. Though the resulting blacklisting has withstood legal challenge in the U.S. and Canada, a European court this year struck down the MEK's terrorist listing in the E.U. The new ruling was based on an earlier British court decision that ordered the terrorist designation be lifted because of a lack of evidence that the MEK had been involved...
...overlooked the enormous street protests of recent days, including the June 16 protests that stretched across five miles of Tehran. When the news does make mention, it shows brief scenes of what presenters describe as "hooligans" rioting. Street interviews either highlight those who back Ahmadinejad, or young people who claim to be recanting their support for Mir-Hossein Mousavi in light of recent developments. (Read a story about how to report in Tehran when you're banned...