LIBYA: Ahmadinejad slams repression in Libya as Iranian authorities confiscate satellite dishes

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday slammed Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi for what he described as ‘unimaginable repression’ against the Libyan people.

‘It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens,’ Ahmadinejad said in an interview broadcast on state television. ‘How can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?’

‘This is unacceptable. Let the people speak, be free, decide to express their will,’ he added. ‘Do not resist the will of the people.’

Ahmadinejad has been widely criticized for his government’s violent crackdown on protesters following the disputed 2009 presidential elections in Iran.

The president’s words followed midnight raids Monday and Tuesday on several apartment buildings in the Qods township in western Tehran, considered a bastion of the opposition. The raids were aimed at collecting banned television satellite dishes, sources in Tehran told Babylon & Beyond. Authorities have repeatedly blamed foreign and opposition media beamed into Iran via satellite for fomenting unrest against the government.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

AFP contributed to this report.