Sons, Aides of Top Iran Cleric Arrested
November 3, 2003
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian security agents on Monday arrested two sons and two close aides of Iran's leading dissident cleric, a wife of one of the detainees said.
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri's sons, Ahmad and Saeed Montazeri, plus his aides, Reza Ziaei and Gholamreza Hojjati, were taken into custody by plainclothes security agents in Qom, a holy city 80 miles southwest of Tehran, Zahra Rabbani, Ahmad's wife, told The Associated Press.
Rabbani said Iranian authorities gave no reason for the arrests, but the move came after she had decided to turn a building next to her home into a seminary school for the elder Montazeri to teach in.
Security agents have closed the building, which is where Monday's arrests occurred.
Montazeri, 81, resumed teaching in September after spending five years under house arrest in Qom for telling students that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was incompetent to issue religious rulings.
Montazeri had also accused ruling hard-line clerics of monopolizing power and ignoring the democratic demands of ordinary Iranians. Khamenei denounced him as a traitor and the mosque where he made the speech was closed.
Following Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Montazeri had been the designated successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That was until he fell out with Khomeini shortly before his 1989 death after complaining about powers wielded by unelected clerics.
Criticizing Khamenei is considered taboo in Iran and critics are subject to punishment. But in recent months, reformers have become bolder and directly criticized Khamenei and the unelected bodies he controls.
On Monday, Mojtaba Lotfi, a close aide to the grand ayatollah, said the mosque Montazeri preached at in Qom has remained closed since he was first placed under house arrest.
``They (hard-liners) believe the mosque where Khamenei was criticized in should never open again,'' he said. ``It is apparently a symbolic decision to tell everyone that Khamenei should not be criticized.''
Lotfi said Montazeri condemned the arrest of his sons and aides. He did not elaborate.
In his first public speech in six years following the lifting of the house arrest order in September, Montazeri denounced Iran's theocratic establishment as undemocratic and urged it to allow the country's young people to choose their future.
Montazeri, who is in poor health, is one of a few grand ayatollahs, the most senior theologians of the Shiite Muslim faith. He enjoys huge followings in Qom and Isfahan, his birthplace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3342475,00.htmlIs it possible to check which of the security services that did this, and who ordered it?
