TEHRAN, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Masked security forces took the place of the guards normally posted outside the home of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, witnesses said.
Mousavi was put under house arrest Monday as opposition leaders in Iran petitioned the government to stage demonstrations this week.
Opposition protesters scuffled with plainclothes police during the violent reaction to the contested re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
Lawmakers, this week during legislative sessions, called for the execution of Mousavi and fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi. Both men launched bids to unseat Ahmadinejad in 2009 and became leaders of the opposition Green Movement in the wake of the unrest.
Nothing has been heard of Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard since Tuesday, Radio Zamaneh, a Persian-language broadcaster in the Netherlands, reported witnesses as saying.
The broadcaster points to Mousavi's Web site, which said masked security guards have taken the place of the opposition leader's personnel security detail.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a senior Iranian cleric, said during Friday prayers that legal authorities have the tools needed to quiet the "leaders of the sedition movement" by cutting them off from the outside world.
"Everyone knows that this act of the seditionists is dishonest, hypocritical and deceitful," he was quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency as saying.
