Iran said said Monday it will probe allegations presidential elections were marred by ballot rigging as it sought to stem a third day of chaos following hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declared election victory.

The country’s government-funded Press TV reported that Iran’s Guardian Council — a body of top clerics and judges — will investigate reformist opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi’s claims.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has given his blessing to the outcome of the election, assured Moussavi of the Council’s investigation in a meeting Sunday, Press TV said.

Meanwhile, Moussavi was expected to ask followers to call off the spontaneous demonstrations and appeal for calm, CNN reports.

Opposition groups launched protests after Ahmadinejad’s claim he had won 62 percent of the vote, despite predictions the election would be closely fought amid growing disquiet over the president’s economic and foreign policies.

Hundreds of Moussavi supporters Monday defied a government ban on their rallies, gathering for a demonstration at Tehran University. The government had earlier in the day rejected a request by Moussavi to hold a nationwide march.

“They are chanting slogans: ‘Death to the dictator,'” a witness told CNN. “We are here. We will not leave the scene until our presence is known.”

On Monday, Ahmadinejad delayed by a day a trip to Russia to meet with President Dmitry Medvedev because of the post-election unrest, the Iranian embassy said.

Iran’s media mostly ignored the protests and international journalists were prevented from covering the demonstrations.

The France-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders said it had confirmed the arrest of four reporters by Iranian authorities, including one who won the organization’s press freedom prize in 2001.

In addition, it said, it had no information about 10 other reporters who had either gone into hiding or had been arrested.

Reporters for an Italian station, RAI, and for Reuters were beaten by police in the capital, Tehran. And a CNN producer was hit with a police baton.

Iranian authorities closed Al-Arabiya’s Tehran bureau for a week without explanation, the Arabic network said on Sunday. And two reporters were attacked outside Moussavi’s headquarters on Friday, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The Web sites of pro-opposition supporters were inaccessible, and the government also had periodically shut down access to social-networking sites, making it difficult for information to reach the outside world.

“An election won by means of censorship and arrests of journalists is not democratic,” the reporters group said.

Germany — one of Iran’s biggest trading partners and a key player in efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear program, said it would summon the Iranian ambassador Monday to explain “brutal handling” of protesters.

Protests have also been held in cities including Washington; London, Toronto and, while tens of thousands of others championed the demonstrations on social-networking Web sites.

Con Coughlin, author of “Khomeini’s Ghost” said Iran has twice seen public calls for reform in recent years: in 1999 after the closure of a reformist newspaper; and after parliamentary elections in 2000.

“On both those occasions, the Revolutionary Guard, the security forces came out in force. And within a few days, the whole thing has been crushed,” he said. “I just fear the same thing will happen this time.”

HATRED, CHAOS AND SAVAGE BEATINGS

A CNN reporter writes: He was surrounded and pleading for them to stop but six men with clubs, batons and metal rods kept battering a young Iranian man with ruthless force. The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear.

Seconds earlier the man had dared to stand up to the baton wielding men because they had shoved a 14-year-old girl. For his chivalry he got one of the most savage beatings I have ever seen at the hands of four Iranian riot policemen and members of the Baseej, Iran’s plain clothed volunteer militia.

“To hell with Iran,” he said as he sat beaten and battered along the sidewalk. “This is not my government. This is not my country.”

A grown man who watched the beating burst into tears.

This was a glimpse of the ugly aftermath of Iran’s presidential elections, which sparked outrage among supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.

Moussavi’s backers are calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory a sham. They’re demanding the vote be annulled. The government’s response has been a ruthless and violent crackdown.

Two teenage girls carrying bricks had French manicured fingernails and designer sunglasses. The protesters threw objects, burned trash bins, honked their horns and chanted “death to the dictator!”

They were loud, until they heard the roar of the motorcycles.

The motorcycles belonged to two groups of Ahmadinejad supporters: Iran’s riot police and the Baseej.

The riot police looked like modern gladiators, muscular and menacing with camouflaged uniforms, black boots, black bulletproof vests and black shielded helmets. They rode in pairs. One drove while the other wielded a club or a baton. They swarmed crowds of rowdy protesters in packs of about 20, beating anyone who got in their way.

On several occasions I saw female Moussavi supporters plead with their male counterparts not to run away. But they almost always did. They were clearly intimidated by the brutal show of force.

The Baseejis were just as ruthless. Those who didn’t ride on motorcycles walked the streets in large packs carrying clubs. They didn’t wear uniforms, so they could easily ambush protesters. They beat one protester so badly that he collapsed in the middle of an intersection and trembled uncontrollably. I saw one battered young man crawl into the lobby of an apartment building, curl up under the stairwell and sob. He had welts on his forehead and bruises up and down his arms.

“They hit me with everything,” he said as he gasped for air. “They hit with clubs. They hit me with chains.”

During a Saturday afternoon news conference Ahmadinejad compared the violent crackdown against the protesters to a citation after a traffic ticket.

A few hours later thousands gathered in midtown Tehran to hear Ahmadinejad deliver a victory speech. The re-elected president said the elections belonged to Iran’s people.

Never since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have Iran’s people appeared this divided.

(Source: CNN)