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Pedro Gonçalves

Iran's Steely Chief Cleric Steps Forward - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009061903596.html

Iran Ali Khamenei Hossein Montazeri Ruhollah Khomeini Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Basij Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The grand ayatollah widely expected to follow him, Hossein Ali Montazeri, lost his place by expressing revulsion at violence committed in the name of the revolution. if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & INLINE_ARTICLE_AD ) == INLINE_ARTICLE_AD && inlineAdGraf ) { placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,20,'inline=y;',true) ; } "I surely would follow you up to the entrance of hell," Montazeri wrote to his mentor, Khomeini, in 1988, when political prisoners were being hanged by the hundreds each day. "But I am not ready to follow you in."
  • "There's a question in my mind whether Khamenei is calling the shots or whether the Revolutionary Guards are calling the shots
  • "Whether true or not, Khamenei has long believed that the U.S. is bent on regime change in Tehran, not via force but via a soft or velvet revolution," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "For the last 20 years, I imagine he goes to sleep at night and wakes up every morning mistrusting both outside powers and his own population. In that type of atmosphere of fear and mistrust, he's relied on the intelligence, security and military forces much more than the clergy."
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  • Around Khamenei's neck yesterday was the simple plaid kerchief worn by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military organization that, unlike the regular army, reports directly to the supreme leader.
  • Khamenei, now 69, was the overwhelming choice of a conservative clerical establishment that -- with his white beard, black turban and name just a few vowels away from his mentor's -- he tends to blend right into. Only a mid-ranking cleric at the time of his selection, Khamenei was immediately promoted to ayatollah. That move, analysts say, was immensely significant, instantly introducing practical politics into a religious hierarchy grounded for centuries exclusively in scholarship
  • President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who sat cross-legged in the front row at prayers yesterday, emerged from both the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, the largely working-class, volunteer organization that is part paramilitary, part social welfare. Khamenei has nurtured both groups as constituencies and instruments of social control independent of the clergy. "Khamenei depends on them almost entirely,'' Sick said of the Basiji. "He is in no position to contradict them or take exception to their wishes. They are very conservative and want to protect the system as it is."
  • Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, two-time president of Iran, current head of two major councils and, not least, the cleric historians say worked hardest to ensure that Khamenei succeeded Khomeini
  • Rafsanjani's absence from "possibly the most important speech by any top leader in the past 30 years strikes me as really significant."
Argos Media

Call to prosecute officials after Iranian blogger dies in prison | World news | The Gua... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...rsayafi-iran-blogger-rouznegar

Iran Bloggers Evin Prison

shared by Argos Media on 20 Mar 09 - Cached
  • An Iranian blogger convicted of insulting the country's religious leaders has died in jail after taking a drug overdose.Omidreza Mirsayafi, 29, died in Tehran's notorious Evin prison on Wednesday, just over a month after a judge gave him a two-and-a-half year sentence for posting comments on his blog about figures including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini .
  • Human rights campaigners called for prison officials to be prosecuted after Mirsayafi took extra doses of tranquilisers prescribed by prison doctors. He was suffering from depression and had previously attempted to commit suicide, according to a fellow inmate.
  • His death followed that of Amir Hossein Heshmatsaran, founder of an Iranian opposition group called the National Unity Front, who died on 6 March while serving an eight-year sentence. Heshmatsaran's family alleged that he had died because of negligence, after suffering a stroke.
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  • News of Mirsayfi's death emerged as officials announced the arrest of 27 people they said were involved in pornographic and erotic websites allegedly created by foreign powers aiming to foment a "soft revolution" against the Islamic regime.
Pedro Gonçalves

Middle East News | Top Iranian cleric issues warning to rulers - 0 views

www.alarabiya.net/...76964.html

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Ali Montazeri Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 25 Jun 09 - Cached
  • A top Iranian dissident cleric warned the nation's rulers on Thursday that their continued suppression of opposition protests over the disputed presidential election could destabilise the regime.
  • "If Iranians cannot talk about their legitimate rights at peaceful gatherings and are instead suppressed, complexities will build up which could possibly uproot the foundations of the government, no matter how powerful," Montazeri said in a statement faxed to AFP.
  • Montazeri, once tipped as a possible successor to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also called for an "impartial" committee to be set up to resolve the worst crisis in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic.
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  • Meanwhile, Iran's interior minister took aim at the U.S. saying rioters were being funded by the CIA and the exiled opposition group the People's Mujahedeen.
  • Iran has accused the United States and its close ally Britain in particular of stoking trouble, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announcing on Wednesday that Tehran may downgrade ties with London.
  • Ahmadinejad told US President Barack Obama on Thursday to stop "interfering" in Iran's affairs. "I hope you (Obama) will avoid interfering in Iran's affairs and express regret in a way that the Iranian people are informed of it," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Associated Press: Top cleric may be playing role in Iran unrest - 0 views

www.google.com/...aBUwyqRa30GRUJAsd4jcwD98UL81G0

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Khamenei

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • A camp of pragmatic clerics and politicians led by Rafsanjani, while loyal to the revolution's principles, wants to build better ties with the West and a more friendly image of Iran."What is clear is that the leadership is far more polarized and splintered than has been clear in the past," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
  • "Now that the leader has made clear he was supportive of Ahmadinejad and sharing the same vision of the future of the Islamic Republic, it can be taken as a major defeat for Rafsanjani and for the political options he promotes," said Frederic Tellier, an Iran expert in the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
  • Rafsanjani was president between 1989 and 1997, but failed to win a third term when in 2005, losing to Ahmadinejad in a runoff. He was a close follower of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of Iran's Islamic Revolution. He now heads the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.He also is the head of the powerful Assembly of Experts, which comprises senior clerics who can elect and dismiss the country's supreme leader.
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  • Alireza Nader, an expert on Iran with the RAND corporation, says Rafsanjani retains some leverage against Khamenei and Ahmadinejad as chairman of the Assembly of Experts. However, he says, Khamenei ignored a letter Rafsanjani wrote asking him to restrain Ahmadinejad, who accused the former president of corruption in a televised debate.Ignoring the letter, Nader said, "was perceived by many Iranians as a rebuke to Rafsanjani and his role in the political system."Rafsanjani's influence may have significantly dissipated as a result, he said."Rafsanjani is a son of the revolution," said Tellier of the International Crisis Group. "But his own future depends on how far the leader will allow Ahmadinejad to go in his attacks against Rafsanjani and his family."
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