Posts Tagged ‘Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’

Cleric calls Iran leaders despotic

August 27, 2009
Al Jazeera, Aug 27, 2009

Montazeri has criticised the ruling system under Ayatollah Khamenei, pictured, as ‘despotic’ [AFP]

A senior Iranian religious cleric has sharply criticised the country’s supreme leader, saying the country is being ruled by a dictatorship following the disputed June presidential election.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri said on Wednesday that the ruling system under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has misused Islam in its crackdown against opposition supporters.

He said Iranian authorities also showed their true nature with the violent suppression of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who filled the streets of the capital, Tehran, to protest against the results of the June 12 vote.

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Wallerstein: Obama’s Very Limited Options

July 2, 2009

Immanuel Wallerstein, Commentary No. 260, July 1, 2009

For the past few weeks, the world’s attention has been fixed on Iran, where there has been much public unrest about the contested presidential elections. It now seems fairly clear that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad will be sworn in as the next president of Iran with the full backing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. President Barack Obama has been under considerable pressure, primarily from conservative forces within the United States, to take a “tougher” position on the Iranian election.

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Iran’s dictator gives up pretence of democracy

June 21, 2009

The Sunday Times/UK, June 21, 2009

By Amir Taheri

Just before noon on Friday, June 19, the Islamic republic died in Iran. Its death was announced by its “supreme guide”, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had come to praise the system but buried it instead. Khamenei was addressing supporters on the campus of Tehran University, transformed into a mosque for the occasion. Many had expected him to speak as a guide, an arbiter of disputes – a voice for national reconciliation. Instead, he spoke as a rabble rouser and a tinpot despot.

At issue was the June 12 presidential election that millions of Iranians, perhaps a majority, believe was rigged to ensure the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a two-thirds majority. Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic republic has organised 31 elections at different levels. All have been carefully scripted, with candidates pre-approved by the regime and no independent mechanism for oversight.

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