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The
End of Household Imprisonment of a Religious Leader
The future challenge of Iran
By M.Behnoud
During the midnight of the last day of January, the neighbors of
Husseinali Montazeri, the lofty clergy and the greatest dissident
Ayatollah, woke up by the sound of cranes that had appeared to remove
the guard chamber and iron road barriers built five years ago, in
order to put an end to house imprisonment of a man who even in his
eighties inspires awe in certain rulers of Iran and gives hope to
those who still believe in the possibility of a religious government
observant of Human Rights.
The end of the household imprisonment of Ayatollah Montazeri took
place two days before the onset of the celebration of the anniversary
of the victory of Islamic Revolution in which he played an important
role twenty four years ago. But the number of people who rushed
to the religious city of Qum to visit him the next day after his
liberation was significantly less than the crowd that when he was
released from Shah’s prison in October 1978 raised him on
their hands; the same people who forced Shah to flee from the country
four months later and put an end to 2500 years of monarchy. Now
after the release of Ayatollah Montazeri, the most well-known dissident
of the present leaders of Islamic republic, are we again to wait
for unexpected events taking place in Iran?
Ayatollah Montazeri who had an interview with BBC a few hours after
the disappearance of the guards and his liberation from his household
imprisonment said nothing about the difficult time of his arrest
and presented no political plan, but while his voice was broadcast,
everywhere in the country, in the streets and buses and offices
everybody was talking about the news of his liberation. His followers
and disciples in Qum and Isfahan and Tehran dared to bring out his
pictures that they had hidden in cellars and other hiding places
since his removal from his position by Ayatollah Khomeini.
The question now raised after Montazeri’s release in the mind
of specialists in Iranian affairs in various media was whether this
decision made on the verge of the trip of Christin Patin, the foreign
commissar of European Union and Human Rights inspectors to Iran
was due to the pressure of Europeans who had set conditions for
extension of their relations with Iran. Have the leaders of Iran
decided to show that they intend to put an end to violation of human
rights in the country as the day of American attack on Iraq is approaching
and Islamic Republic is threatened by a similar danger? Is Ayatollah
Montazeri a serious threat to Ayatollah Khamenei who is sitting
in his position as the leader of Islamic Republic? Could the release
of an influential and effective dissident who dared to criticize
religious despotism while Ayatollah Khomeini was still alive lead
to a new movement in Iran when the majority of people have lost
hope in any political reformation taking place in the country; and
finally was this decision merely made because the security officials
were worried that his death under such conditions may lead to insurgences
and explosions that in turn may lead to unexpected changes in Iran?
The answer to all these questions may entails parts of the truth,
but there is one question still remaining: What will be the consequences
of this event in Iran? In order to find the right answer to this
question we have to go back and show the role and significance of
Ayatollah Montazeri in the set up of Islamic Republic.
What has granted Ayatollah Montazeri the position to play the role
of a dissident and opposition under two political regimes and to
give such significance to his imprisonment and release is his perseverance
in his convictions, and although some of these believes may have
strong tone of traditionalism and anti-modernism, nevertheless the
modern society of Iran has a great respect for him. He is the only
clergy among the early leaders of Islamic Republic that gave up
the life-time role of the leader of Islamic republic and even though
he had a part in the unpleasant events that followed the victory
of Revolution in 1978, but with his criticisms and objections expressed
openly he corrected his path.
In 1978, when the mass protest against the monarchy was culminating,
the ex-regime released two clergies, Mahmoud Taleghani and Husseinali
Montazeri, on the birthday of Shah as a sign of conciliation with
the religious front and for the purpose of calming down the people.
An hour after their release from the prison, they joined the crowd
that demanded the fall of monarchy in their mass protests. Taleghani
was more popular and independent, while Montazeri was closer to
Ayatollah Khomeini and shortly after his release from the prison,
he traveled to Noffle Le Chateaux in France to meet the Leader of
the Revolution and announce his submission and in less than a year,
he was the head of the parliament that was to compile the first
constitutional law of Islamic Republic.
It was in the same parliament that Montazeri proposed the thesis
of Velayat Faghih (the rulership of a clergy) and encouraged its
approval by the assembly of Khobragans (highly qualified religious
and professional specialists in law) by his constant insistence.
To put an ecclesiastic in the highest position of rulership was
a thesis that not only many old popular clergies did not approve,
but there are many objections against this idea in classical religious
Shiite texts as well.
But Montazeri believed that with the presence of a great enemy like
Soviet Union in the north of the country and the power that pro-communist
forces had in Iran and with the various crises shadowing the whole
country with the fall of monarchy, the country can be saved from
anarchy only if a powerful clergy assumes the highest position of
the government.
Thus the Islamic Republic took shape with the approval of Constitutional
Law that put a clergy in the highest position of rulership in the
new government of Iran that sounded like a religious monarchy to
the opposition. Once Khobregans approved this law, they also elected
Montazeri as the vice-leader, replacing Ayatollah Khomeini when
the time arrives. A highly difficult and challenging responsibility
for which Montazeri did not possess the necessary experience and
the delicate political subtleties and tolerance.
In the third anniversary of the establishment of Islamic Republic
when the war with Iraq and internal and external crises were threatening
the government seriously, Ayatollah Montazeri now seemingly familiar
with complexities and challenges of rulership left the center of
the government and returned to Qum. The same path that Ayatollah
Khomeini had taken two months after his return to the country, but
failed to continue due to the overall crisis going on in the country.
Montazeri’s first protest took place at the time when the
ruling clergies started to establish open and concealed economic
and political relations with the world by using the opportunity
that the war offered them.
When age and illness overwhelmed Ayatollah Khomeini and apprehension
in relation to the future of the country in his absence overwhelmed
all the clergies and their conservative followers, Montazeri possessing
the high position of vice-leader, tried to defend the rights of
the deprived and poor people of villages and small cities in his
speeches and proclamations, thus by supporting the monopolized form
of state economy he simultaneously challenged conservatives and
traditionalist clergies and stockbrokers in Bazaars (central markets).
His main and determining opposition versus conservatives began when
he protested against their brutal and severe reactions to their
opponents. Montazeri who had experienced prosecution and arrest
for years in Shah’s prisons believed in milder methods and
acceptance of repentance of the young followers of various guerrilla
groups that were arrested and executed due to their participation
in assassinations and street demonstrations. Opposed to him were
the conservatives who had managed to save the country from all the
threatening dangers by their appeal to the harshest possible measures.
They had seized the highest ruling positions in the Revolutionary
courts, Sepah (Revolutionary army), the intelligent and security
services with the support of Ayatollah Khomeini and did not heed
Montazeri’s admonitions.
Montazeri’s critical and bitter letters to the leader of Islamic
Republic and his attempts to reveal the course of executions and
prosecution in the prisons that led to the election of a group to
inspect the prisons and rehearing of the execution verdicts, although
were successful for a short time, but they made the conservatives
to realize that if he were to replace the old sick leader of the
Revolution, he would be a great obstacle to the continuation of
their rule over politics and economy of the country due to the power
anticipated by the law for Vali Faghih. Thus a group of influential
individuals was quickly mobilized against him with Ahmad, Ayatollah
Khomeini’s son as its effective dynamo.
The removal of Ayatollah Montazeri from his position took place
when Khomeini was in sickbed and the intelligent service had approached
the office of his vice-leadership, executing the latter’s
intimates including Mehdi Hashemi with the excuse of revealing the
affair going on between Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ronald Regan’s
state, famous as “Iran Gate’ in America. In the letter
announcing the removal of Montazeri from his position Ayatollah
Khomeini called him “a part of his body” and expressing
his regret for Montazeri’s behavior, he advised him to withdraw
from political activities and insisted that he only had the right
to teach in theological schools. The conservatives revealed this
letter five years ago for preparing the way for Montazeri’s
household arrest.
By the final months of Ayatollah Khomeini’s life, it was already
known that with the apparent aim of renovation of the country ruined
as the result of the eight year war with Iraq, the powerful ecclesiastic
had the intention to change the constitutional law in order to rule
the country differently in the absence of Khomeini. During those
days that Hashemi Rafsanjani had been elected as the President that
had now more power in his hand, nobody still knew that in that afternoon
of fourth of June 1989, ten hours after the announcement of the
death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei would be the man who would
replace him. Montazeri congratulated Ayatollah Khamenei in a telegram
on the same day, showing that he was not discouraged that somebody
else has taken his position.
However the severe treatment and suppression of opposition taking
place under the presidency of Rafsanjani and the dominance of conservatives
over intelligent and security services and Ayatollah Khamenei’s
use of the additional power that the new constitutional law had
bestowed the leader of the Islamic Republic, once again brought
Ayatollah Montazeri to the battlefield of power and after his first
public speech, certain groups organized by the conservatives attacked
his office, but the real blow to his freedom and his household arrest
happened when following the victory of reformists, and the disclosure
of assassination of dissidents, financial corruption and economic
dealings in the past, Montazeri’s opposing tone intensified
in all his speeches and proclamations evidently aiming the highest
ruling authority of the country. The man who had suggested and insisted
on the inclusion of the idea of Velayat Faghih as an article of
the constitutional law was now reasoning that Vali Faghih should
merely be a just supervisor and not a dictator ruling despotically.
With the publication of the above speech, the conservatives who
defeated in the presidential election were waiting for an opportunity
to show their real power arranged an organized attack and with the
extensive arrest of Montazeri’s relatives and followers intended
to put on him trial, but by receiving the news of the probable rise
of a public insurgence, they gave up the idea. This event planted
once more the name of Husseinali Montazeri as a warrior and defendant
of public rights in the mind of the new generation. However, it
was after this event that the conservatives succeeded to execute
policies that prevented the reformists to reach their goals and
as the recent census show the majority of voters have lost their
hope in the reformation movement and the reformists who came to
power with their votes. The return of Ayatollah Montazeri to the
political scene of the country is taking place under such conditions.
What has forced the leaders of Islamic Republic to take this risk
in the twenty fourth anniversary of the establishment of Islamic
Republic to release Ayatollah Montazeri and allow an effective critic
of the regime to re-appear on the political scene of the country
is not important. What is important is that in contrast to the optimistic
view of opposition, it will not bring about further weakening of
the government, but instead it will give it the opportunity to repair
its undermined connection with people. Such freedom will not help
even those in favor of separation of religion and politics, but
rather it will pave the way to link democracy and religion for those
who have realized that Islamic fundamentalism is facing a great
danger and democracy is the only way that can save the government
from the international pressures.
The young generation of Iran demanding a better and more modern
life do not expect a miracle from a clergy, no matter how liberalist
he may be; that is why the release of Ayatollah Montazeri will not
add to the followers of reformation, nevertheless it can help and
benefit the course of peaceful reformation in Iran, because it will
automatically decrease the influence and power of the conservatives.
With his presence, the theological schools will be relatively freed
from the monopoly of the conservatives.
Following a crafty policy in practice, Islamic traditionalists and
fundamentalists have used every opportunity to propagate the idea
that the reformists intend to establish a scholastic and laic government
and the real meaning of reformation is the overthrow of the religious
rule. Through such propaganda, they have managed to prevent faithful
masses and clergies who are still the main source of power in Iran
from joining the reformation movement. The continuation of their
false propaganda will be more difficult with the direct presence
of Ayatollah Montazeri on the scene.
Among those who arrived at Qum on the first day of February was
the sister of Hashem Aghajari, the university professor condemned
to death on the account of his supposed insult to Islam and Imams
during the speech he delivered for university students. Zohreh Aghajari
knows that if Ayatollah Montazeri approves that his brother’s
speech was not in fact an insult to Imams and Islamic values, no
force can carry out that clamorous verdict and this is no little
influence in the present conflict in Iranian society that is trying
to establish a connection between religious rule and democracy and
to improve its life without another revolution.
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