Word: montazeri
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
RELEASED. AYATULLAH HOSSEIN ALI MONTAZERI, 80, Iran's most prominent dissident cleric; from five years of house arrest imposed after he challenged the institution of supreme clerical rule; by the Supreme Council of National Security; in Qum. Montazeri was once in line to lead the country but was stripped of that status by Ayatullah Khomeini in 1989 after he accused the judiciary of "murdering" political opponents, among other criticisms of the government. He has vowed to "continue to talk about issues...
IRAN Free at Last Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Iran's most prominent dissident cleric, a man once considered the natural successor to Ayatullah Khomeini, was released from house arrest in the city of Qom. Montazeri, who is in his 80s, was confined in November 1997 after he criticized the authority of Iran's conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Montazeri is a rallying point for those disaffected with the slow pace of reform. On his release, he told his supporters he would "continue to talk about issues and to act." See Also: Islamic Republic in Transition...
...with hard-liners: in an impeachment trial last year, parliament ousted him as Minister of the Interior for permitting student demonstrations. Since then, his main vehicle of dissent has been the national daily Khordad. The newspaper has published defiant antiregime opinions by prominent clerics, notably Grand Ayatullah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who has been under house arrest since 1997 for questioning velayat-e-faqih, the absolute authority of the clergy. In an explosive article, a young cleric, Mohsen Kadivar, even criticized the royalist tendencies of the clerics and their treatment of Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei as a shah. Hard-liners...
Khomeini's reassertion of radical Islamic rejectionism soon claimed his appointed successor, Ayatullah Ali Montazeri, 65, as a victim. Montazeri had harshly criticized the war with Iraq and did not endorse the killing of Rushdie. In late March he was forced to resign...
...setting the direction of the nation through proclamations and statements, Khomeini left it to his followers to forge specific policies. Still, he remained the pivotal figure of Iranian politics, even toward the end, when his various illnesses made it impossible for him to follow events closely. The dismissal of Montazeri, in the opinion of many experts, put increased power in the hands of the pragmatic Rafsanjani, who is also Commander in Chief of the Iranian armed forces. In the final months of Khomeini's life, the spotlight also turned on his son, Ahmed Khomeini, 43, who has lately been increasingly...