Iran: The Clerical Challenge Continues (Shahryar)

Josh Shahryar writes for EA:

As the Green Movement reconsiders its strategy of opposition to the government, Iranian clerics are also continuing their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader. Some of the strongest sentiments were shown yesterday by Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi, as Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani joined in for a jab at Khamenei Inc.

In the first attack, the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, was harshly rebuked on his stance over post-election detentions by Golpayegani. Larijani, who is meeting prominent clerics in Qom, was told that even one day's delay in the release of detainees was against Islamic law.


Radio Zameneh reports that Golapyegani told Larijani...

...the delays in processing charges and maintained that the judiciary must do its utmost to avoid any delays in processing people's files. If external forces interfere in the judiciary and influence the judges and they fail to follow the truth in their sentencing, the independence of the judiciary will be compromised.

Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani insisted that recent attempts at resolving the problems of the judiciary and aligning it with the provisions of Islam had been unacceptable. He maintained, "All sentencing and imprisonments should follow the basic laws of Islam."

Golpayegani may sound like he is a reformist, but this is the same cleric that issued a fatwa against the appointment of women as provincial governors. He is firmly on the side of the Green Movement, however, calling the Presidential election "a grand lie".

Further pressure yesterday came from Ayatollah Mousavi Tabrizi. Speaking to the Iranian Labor News Agency --- an outlet considered a channel for Hashemi Rafsanjani --- Tabrizi said that "the issue of leadership of a senior cleric, referred to as 'velayat-e-faqih' in the Islamic Republic's Constitution can be very well put to a referendum and even the late leader of the 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini would have agreed with such a referendum".

Payvand adds:

[Mousavi Tabrizi] stressed that Islam cannot be established on dictatorship and it has to be based on the will of the people....The late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, believed in 'velayat-e-faqih', [but] from a political standpoint he believed that it must be the choice of the people....If the Imam were alive today and some people were to tell him that due to post-Revolution generational developments in society, the majority are probably no longer in favour of 'velayat-e-faqih', and we want to gauge the support of people at this time, the Imam would have agreed with a referendum.

Mousavi Tabrizi is the secretary-general of the Assembly of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, which is considered close to the reformist movement. After the election, Mousavi-Tabrizi praised Rafsanjani's sermon of 17 July which called for release of detainees and declared that the Guardian Council was biased with respect to the elections and that people had a right to demonstrate.

What is evident from these statements is that the Green Movement continues to enjoy support from high-ranking clerics. Golapyegani is on par in terms of experience with Grand Ayatollah Yusuf Sane'i, who is currently filling the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's void in opposition to the Government. Both of them are higher in rank than Khamenei. Tabrizi himself is of no less stature.

As the Green Movement transforms itself, it seems thatvtheir cause will be important to clerics. The government will have to continue to fight on three fronts to stop itself from falling from the public's favor: the Green Movement, the international community, and the religious leaders who are supposedly the foundation of the Islamic Republic.