Throwing up a challenge to to the increasingly violent tactics of Iran’s ruling elite, the country’s two leading opposition figures are urging protesters to defy the government and take to the streets in an anti-government rally on February 11.

The government announced on Tuesday that it would execute nine protesters in addition to the two who were hanged last week. The prosecutor also asked for the death sentence for a 24-year-old protester today, having charged him with Moharehbeh, or waging war against God, for “throwing rocks during protests,” the ISNA student news agency reported.

The statements by the two opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared to reflect a unanimous decision among opposition leaders to stand fast in the face of the brutal treatment of protesters by the government.

The statement from Mr. Karoubi, posted Wednesday on his Web site, Sahamnews.org, called for free elections, release of political prisoners and an end to the police state created since the June 12 elections. He renewed his accusations that the results of the June 12 elections were “engineered,” and dismissed claims that he was seeking a compromise with the government.

“I will defend the legitimate and legal freedoms and rights of the people,” he said. “This is my unbreakable vow.”

Mr. Karoubi’s statement followed by a day some of Mr. Moussavi’s harshest remarks to date against the country’s rulers and the regime, which he called “dictatorial.”

However, Mr. Karroubi urged protesters to stay calm, warning that their enemies wished to provoke them into acts of violence so as to justify even more brutal measures to suppress them.

“The opposition movement today includes groups with diverse demands,” he said. “We might agree or oppose some of the ideas but we all agree over free elections, free press, unconditional release of political prisoners and a reformed way of political governance.

“Without any doubt, increasing these demands can lead to more violent suppression of the movement.”

CNN: Karrubi, whose statement appeared on Moussavi’s Web site, denounced “tyranny, arrests and imprisonment of journalists, students and political activists, show trials, executions, and heavy-handed sentencing of those who are unjustly and wrongly accused as well as a greatly increased military environment.”