Tehran - Iran arrested hundreds of people after deadly clashes on the tense streets of Tehran, state radio said on Monday, but the opposition defiantly vowed to press on with its post-election protests.
As the nation's Islamic rulers struggle to contain the biggest upheaval since the 1979 revolution, the election watchdog the Guardians Council acknowledged discrepancies in the June 12 presidential vote but insisted they would not change the overall results.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has led a wave of massive protests over what he says was a rigged election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, urged supporters to continue demonstrating but to adopt "self-restraint" to avoid more bloodshed.
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State radio said at least 457 people had been detained in clashes around Tehran's Azadi square on Saturday which left 10 people dead and at least 100 more wounded.
Iranian leaders have lashed out at 'meddling' by Western nations In a sign of cracks appearing within Iran's elite, five members of influential cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's family, including his high-profile daughter, were detained by the authorities.
Faezeh Hashemi, a key Mousavi supporter, and four others were arrested on Saturday but released late Sunday, press reports said.
A total of 17 people have been killed and many more wounded since the violence erupted in the post-election turmoil, according to state media, while many hundreds of protestors as well as prominent reformists, journalists and analysts have been rounded up.
The streets of Tehran were tense on Monday but have remained largely quiet since Sunday and there were no reports of any planned demonstrations. Witnesses said they did not see many security personnel out on the streets.
The 12-member Guardians Council acknowledged vote discrepancies, saying its preliminary investigation revealed that the number of ballots cast in 50 of the total 366 electoral districts exceeded the number of eligible voters.
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