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Iran: Key dissident cleric in
worsening health
By Charles
Recknagel/Azam Gorgin
PRAGUE - Ayatollah
Hussein-Ali Montazeri, the man who almost became Iran's
supreme leader a little over a decade ago, is in
worsening health as he remains under house arrest in the
holy city of Qom.
 The ayatollah's son,
Ahmad, told the US Persian-language service Radio Farda
that doctors who visited him recently have diagnosed him
as suffering from a sleeping disorder that so far has
not responded to medication and directly results from
his five years of confinement. "The necessary medication
has been prescribed for his sleeping disorder. The
reason that he has not recuperated is his living
environment and not his physical condition. He has been
living in this house [under house arrest] behind closed
doors for more than five years," Ahmad Montazeri said.
Ahmad Montazeri said that his father's sleeping
disorder has worsened noticeably in recent days. The
cleric, who is 81, sleeps up to 16 hours a day and
suffers from a number of other debilitating medical
problems. "What is worrisome is that he sleeps 16 hours
a day, he has a heart problem, high blood pressure and
is diabetic. He has been suffering from the sleeping
disorder for the past three months, and the situation
has worsened in the past 10 days," Ahmad Montazeri said.
The latest visit by doctors to Montazeri's home
comes after a first medical visit was turned back on
January 5 by security guards. The guards, from Iran's
military elite, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps
(IRGC), refused entry to the medical team despite the
fact that a deputy health minister accompanied them at
the suggestion of Iran's moderate president, Mohammad
Khatami, to give official approval for the visit.
Montazeri's family says that the security guards
told them they had received instructions from the
hardline-dominated Special Court for the Clergy not to
admit visitors. The special court, which has
responsibility for all judicial matters involving
clerics, on Wednesday called that report false and said
the doctors were not admitted because they had not
coordinated their visit beforehand with authorities.
The successful entry by the medical team comes
after more than 70 reformist members of parliament wrote
a letter demanding the Defense Ministry explain why the
IRGC was barring doctors from the Montazeri home.
The news of Montazeri's deteriorating health is
the latest episode in a long-running conflict between
the dissident cleric and hardliners supported by Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If the supreme leader
does not release Montazeri following the recommendation
of the medical team, the decision is sure to raise the
question of whether he has chosen to condemn Montazeri
to death by way of continued confinement.
The
case has great political significance in Iran because
Montazeri - thanks to his eminent religious and
revolutionary credentials - is one of the few men within
Iran's clerical elite with the stature to publicly
oppose and criticize Khamenei on a number of highly
sensitive issues.
Montazeri was initially tapped
to be the successor to Iran's first supreme leader and
founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, who sometimes referred to Montazeri as "the
fruit of my life". But Montazeri's open criticism of
some of the revolution's harshest treatment of its
opponents, as well as his criticism of the conduct of
the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, antagonized other key
members of Khomeini's inner circle. When Khomeini fell
gravely ill before his death in 1989, Montazeri's rivals
persuaded the revolutionary leader to renounce his
protege and relieve him of official duties.
With
Montazeri forced aside, Ali Khamenei, a man with lesser
religious qualifications, was speedily promoted to the
necessary rank of ayatollah and became Iran's next
supreme leader after Khomeini. The substitution of
Khamenei for Montazeri continues to cause disputes
within Iran's clerical establishment, which sees clear
ideological differences between the two men.
RFE/RL regional specialist William Samii said
that one of the most important differences is over the
extent to which the clergy should exercise absolute
political as well as religious power in Iran through the
office of the supreme leader. "Montazeri was a creator
of the current system and he continues to favor an
Islamic theocracy. But many of the objections to the
current state of affairs that he raised in a November
1997 lecture have since been repeated by activists. For
example, he objected to the role of the Guardians
Council in vetting candidates for elected office. He
spoke out against the use of violence in the political
process. And he criticized using the cleric's mantle to
hide personal pursuits, or corruption, in other words,"
Samii said.
Montazeri has frequently called for
placing limits on the absolute authority wielded today
by Supreme Leader Khamenei. He has said that while
Khomeini had the necessary stature for the post,
Khamenei does not.
"Montazeri has been a fierce
critic of Khamenei, who has pretensions to the religious
learning and status of his predecessor. Montazeri said
in 1997 that Khamenei is not a religious source of
emulation. And in 1994, he urged Khamenei to excuse
himself from answering a religious question by saying
that he is too busy. Montazeri said that the country's
religious guardian, if one is really qualified to be
one, should only have a supervisory role," Samii said.
The dissident cleric has also said that he and
other framers of the 1979 constitution never intended to
accord the institution with absolute powers that could
be abused by lesser men. The post of supreme leader was
created by the 1979 revolution to ensure the Islamic
nature of the new society by subjecting all key matters
to review by the country's preeminent religious figure.
Specifically, Montazeri has written that the
supreme leader "can never be beyond the law, and he
cannot interfere in all affairs, particularly affairs
that fall outside his area of expertise, such as complex
economic issues or issues of foreign policy and
international relations".
He has also said that,
"the most important point to be highlighted is that
Islam is for the separation of powers and does not
recognize the concentration of power in the hand of a
fallible human being".
These opinions, which
resulted in Montazeri's being put under house arrest in
1997, go right to the heart of the debate in Iran today
over to what extent the Islamic Republic should be an
Islamic state run by appointed clerics and to what
extent a republic ruled by popularly elected
representatives. They have also made Montazeri a leading
light for many reformist political figures, leading
progressive clerics, and those young seminary students
who feel Iran's Shi'ite Muslim leaders should remain
outside of politics or risk losing credibility with the
faithful.
In one sign of Montazeri's continuing
political importance, a former member of parliament
wrote an open letter in November calling for Khamenei to
release Montazeri, a man he described as worthy - unlike
Khamenei - of the rank of ayatollah. Former
parliamentarian Qasem Sholeh-Sadi wrote, "It has been
several years that [Montazeri] has been under house
arrest with no legitimate court verdict against him, and
everyone is deprived of his guidance."
Sadi
added, "You [Khamenei] lack legitimacy for religious
leadership because you remain [despite Khamenei's rapid
promotion] a 'Hojjat ol-eslam' [a religious rank], which
is miles away from the rank of an ayatollah. One needs
years of research, writing, and teaching to be
considered one."
Montazeri remains influential
in Iran despite his house arrest and the fact that he is
barred from teaching, that his financial resources are
frozen, and that he can receive no guests except close
relatives. The dissident cleric periodically issues
public statements through his family and has conducted
very rare interviews with the press by fax.
Copyright (c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC
20036
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