Ahmadinejad Threatens to Jail Election Foes

As Iran’s increasingly heated presidential campaign winds down, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is accusing his opponents of using “Hitler’s methods” to smear him, Reuters reports. Ahmadinejad threatened to arrest moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi and two other candidates, saying, “No one has the right to insult the president, and they did it.”

Insulting the president is indeed a crime in Iran, punishable by 2 years in prison. Mousavi and the other candidates have accused Ahmadinejad of lying about the economy and isolating the country by pushing its nuclear program and denying the Holocaust. “Such insults against the government are a return to Hitler’s methods,” Ahmadinejad said. “to repeat lies and accusations until everyone believes those lies.” (More Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stories.)