Timeline of the 2009 Iranian election protests the repression and violence which occurred during the election protests. Violent clashes were reported between Iranian police and protesters after a massive protest was held throughout Iran during the Chaharshanbe Suri, over 50 protesters were reported to have been detained. For months prior, large protests had been planned to take place on June 12, the one-year anniversary of the disputed 2009 Iranian Presidential Election. Two days before the planned demonstrations, former presidential candidates and de facto leaders of the Green Movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi canceled the protests scheduled for Saturday "in order to protect people's lives and property".
Mir-Hossein Mousavi as well as the conservative newspaper "Jomhouri-e Eslami", supported Mousavi's candidacy, he did not receive the official backing of any major conservative party. His candidacy made it harder for the conservatives to support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and large conservative parties, such as the Combatant Clergy Association, did not back the current President for a second term of office. Mousavi had on numerous occasions indicated his wish to change the constitution in order to remove the existing ban on the private ownership of television stations (currently all Iranian television stations are state-owned), as well as transfer the control of the law-enforcement forces