Copies of M rquez's 1996 work News of a Kidnapping have sold out from bookshops in Tehran this week after detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said the book's description of Colombian kidnappings offers an accurate reflection of his life under house arrest.

"If you want to understand my situation, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'News of a Kidnapping,'" Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi was quoted as having said in a recent meeting with his daughters. Musavi, who together with his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, has been under house arrest for more than six months, reportedly made the comments some three weeks ago. Opposition websites posted an account of the meeting and Musavi's comments last week.

In his first meeting with all three of his three daughters since he was put under house arrest in February, opposition leader MirHosein Mousavi said the restricted political situation does not warrant participation in the coming parliamentary elections.

A day after the most significant street protests in Iran since the end of the 2009 uprising there, members of the Iranian Parliament called on Tuesday for the two most prominent opposition leaders to be prosecuted and sentenced to death for stirring unrest.

Scott Lucas, who teaches at the University of Birmingham in Britain, and runs the popular Iran blog Enduring America, believes that Iran's hardliners are using the threat of prosecution to put a leash on Moussavi and Karroubi, with tensions running high over government subsidy cuts.