Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismisses protests, rules out any change of election outcome

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last night dismissed protests over last week's election as the work of "tension seekers" following a fourth day of protests in Tehran, and appeared to rule out any change to the outcome of the poll by referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the "elected president".

Khamenei's appeal for calm followed an apparent concession when the regime promised to recount some votes cast in Friday's disputed election, officially won by Ahmadinejad. But the authorities rejected demands by the defeated Mir Hossein Mousavi to annul the election.

Khamenei's intervention came as Mousavi's supporters, many wearing ­signature green wristbands and ­ribbons, rallied in their thousands last night ­outside the Tehran headquarters of ­Iranian state TV, after a separate demonstration in favour of Ahmadinejad. The protest lasted from about 5pm to 8pm and about 100 people were still protesting in front of state TV around 9.45pm. Some fires had been lit and a motorcycle set on fire, but security forces did not intervene.

Posts on Twitter seemed to suggest that there were still pockets of unrest. One user who has been posting messages about the situation in Tehran said there had been reports of street fighting in Azadi square and the surrounding streets with pepper gas being used by security forces. Earlier the poster said hundreds had been arrested during the day, and that as the night wore on Basij militamen were ­causing trouble.

As the night went on the user posted: "Our lives are in real danger now - we are the eyes - they need to stop us."

But numbers on the streets yesterday were far fewer than the 500,000 to 1 ­million who took part in a mass opposition protest in the capital on Monday, when Basij ­militiamen shot dead at least one demonstrator and wounded several others. In all seven ­people were reported killed.

According to the official result, Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote to 34% for Mousavi, a moderate former prime minister and architect.

Ominously, the government ordered ­foreign journalists not ­permanently based in Iran to leave the country at once, and banned resident correspondents from reporting from the streets, a move seen as possibly heralding an intensification of the crackdown.