Some members of Iran's powerful clerical class are stepping up their antigovernment protests over Iran's election in defiance of the country's supreme leader, bringing potential aid to opposition figures as the regime is increasingly labeling them foreign-sponsored traitors.
View Full Image Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, left, cleric and former Iranian president, met over the weekend with relatives of individuals arrested in post-election violence; the move was widely seen as a show of support for the political opposition.
An influential group of religious scholars seen as politically neutral during the presidential election called the country's highest election arbiter, the Guardian Council, biased, and said the June 12 election was "invalid." Earlier, it had endorsed the official result that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated Mir Houssein Mousavi and other challengers by a wide margin.
The group, with no government role, has little practical ability to change the election outcome. But its new posture may carry moral weight with Iranians after security forces have quashed street protests and jailed hundreds of opposition supporters.
It highlights a growing unease among Iran's scholarly ruling class about the direction of the country, and questions the theological underpinning of the Islamic Republic: that the supreme leader and the institutions under him are infallible.
"I'm not sure of the Persian equivalent of 'crossing the Rubicon,' but we are seeing it now. The future of the Islamic Republic, which has in recent years become a fig leaf for keeping a small clique of people in power, is now in question," said Michael Axworthy, director of Exeter University's Center for Persian and Iranian Studies in the U.K.
With public protests withering following a crackdown, continued religious opposition to the electoral process could take on greater meaning. Public statements from clerics about perceived government injustice challenge the state's position that the protest movement is part of a foreign plot to undermine the Islamic Republic.
Since Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, certified Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory last week, the security forces and judiciary have moved to silence his political opponents. On Sunday, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' political office accused Mr. Mousavi of treason, according to the state news service. His statement came after the hard-line newspaper Keyhan, run by a retired Revolutionary Guard officer close to Mr. Ahmadinejad, ran an editorial accusing Mr. Mousavi of being a danger to the regime.
Each side of Iran's political divide has clerics they can call on. Some groups have official government roles while others exercise mostly spiritiual influence, and some groups are divided within themselves. Ahead of the June elections, many clerical associations endorsed candidates. Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei got behind Mr. Ahmadinejad.
View Full Image Associated Press Worshippers chant anti-US and anti-Israel slogans during a Friday prayers ceremony.
Shiite theology allows for differing interpretations of religious text, and Iran has diverse religious and political opinions among its highest-ranking clerics. President Ahmadinejad has promoted officials with like-minded religious views throughout the government bureaucracy. Supporters of reformist clergy, meanwhile, have seen their influence decline as they lose power within the political hierarchy.
The Assembly of Qom Scholars and Researchers, a group of clerics of mixed political stripes, didn't endorse a candidate. It did issue a call for an investigation into the vote results. Once the Guardian Council finished its limited review of the ballots, the group sent a congratulatory message to Mr. Ahmadinejad. But, in an apparent reversal, the assembly on Saturday night posted a statement on its Web site calling the election results invalid -- as does the Mousavi camp.
"Candidates' complaints and strong evidence of vote-rigging were ignored ... peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed ... dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested," the statement said. "The outcome is invalid."
Members of the assembly couldn't be reached to authenticate the statement. There was no immediate response from the Guardian Council or other government agencies.
Read More British Embassy Staff in Iran Will Face Trial
Since the 1979 revolution, some religious scholars in Qom have questioned government policies, and a handful have even gone so far as to question the idea of a supreme leader and a government run by religious authorities. The price for such dissent in the past has been house arrest and marginalization by the state.
Tensions with other governments also continued to escalate for Iran over the weekend. Security officials have blamed outside agitators for the street violence that has killed at least 20 people and wounded hundreds more.
On Sunday, Iran said it had released a Greek journalist who covered the election for the Washington Times, and one British embassy employee detained last week. But it appeared to be moving ahead with a criminal case against a second embassy employee it accused of fomenting dissent. That prospect has led European Union members to consider pulling their 27 ambassadors.
Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden suggested that Washington wouldn't stand in the way of a possible Israeli-led military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Mr. Biden, appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," said Israel "can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest." He added that this was the case "whether we agree or not" with Israeli policy.
Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A8
On Monday, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, warned foreign governments against meddling in internal Iranian affairs following the Iranian presidential election and the subsequent unrest since June 12, 2009.

"Some leaders of Western countries at the level of president, prime minister and foreign minister openly intervened in Iran's internal affairs that had nothing to do with them. Then, they said they don't intervene in Iran's internal affairs," Khamenei said in a nationally televised speech. "These governments must be careful of their hostile remarks and behaviors because the Iranian nation will react. We will calculate the interventionist remarks and behaviors of these governments. Definitely, it will have a negative impact on future relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Meanwhile, opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was declared the loser of the election, but who has alleged that the election was illegitimate, made his first public appearance in three weeks.

"We need to make efforts to show our protest ... within the framework of the law," Mousavi said. "The legitimacy of this government is in question because of the people's lack of trust. This weakens the government from within even if it preserves it in appearance."

"When a government doesn't take shape within the framework of the law, it has no legitimacy in the eyes of the people," he continued. "This weakens the government and encourages the government to resort to violence against the people."

The Guardian Council, a twelve-member council of clerics and jurists charged with interpreting the Constitution of Iran, has declared the election for the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

The Assembly of Qom Scholars and Researchers in Qom has now called the June 12 vote "invalid" in a statement on the groups's website.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
"Candidates' complaints and strong evidence of vote-rigging were ignored ... peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed ... dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested," read the statement by the Assembly. "The outcome is invalid."

The group has no legal authority and is considered to be politically neutral. It had earlier sent a congratulatory message to Ahmadinejad.

On Saturday, President Ahmadinejad issued a press release in which he said the governments of the Western world "did their utmost to aggrandize problems in Iran’s presidential election in a worldwide scale to deviate world public opinions from devastating financial crisis crippling their economies."

The statement further alleged that the West had been "creating widespread diseases such as swine flu in an attempt to find a way out of the current turmoil."