Moussavi’s wife threatens to sue Ahmadinejad

Many see this as a result of last Wednesday’s nationally televised debate,in which the President opened with a furious attack on Moussavi,and his wife. Ahmadinejad held up a document with a small picture of Moussavi’s wife,Zahra Rahnavard,and asked him: “Do you know this woman?” Ahmadinejad then accused Rahnavard — a respected professor of political science — of entering a graduate programme without taking the entrance exam and other,lesser violations of university policy.

The attack on Rahnavard struck a nerve. She has taken an unusually public role in her husband’s campaign,and many liberal Iranians feared that Ahmadinejad’s attack was code for a broader effort to deny women a public role.

On Sunday,Rahnavard said at news conference: “The way the President insulted me was an insult to everyone… Those who made up this case against me wanted to say it is a crime for women to study…”