In 2009, following announcement of the results of the tenth round of Iran’s presidential elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was again declared president, thousands of protesters viewing the election as a coup d’etat protested in Tehran and various other Iranian cities. Supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s main election rival, questioned the legitimacy of the vote count. These protests were met with brutal suppression by the regime’s security forces and para-military militiamen. The brutality of the suppression is said to have been unprecedented in the last decade.