Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Iran Unrest Continues; Reformist Clerics Attacked

Juan Cole 12/23/2009

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Unrest continued in Iran on Tuesday and Wednesday as dissidents combined mourning ceremonies for Grand Ayatollah Hosain Ali Montazeri with anti-regime demonstrations. In the important city of Isfahan, security forces attacked a throng of mourners and fifty were arrested. The ceremony was held at Sayyid Mosque, with reformist cleric Jalal al-Din Taheri presiding.

The regime is clearly especially worried about liberalizing clergymen who might assume the mantle of Montazeri, a regime critic with impressive scholarly credentials.

This concern is illustrated by the home invasion in the holy city of Qom mounted by hard line militiamen against reformist cleric Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei, in the course of which some of his aides were beaten. The hard liners want to expel Sanei and other reformers from Qom, branding them ‘hypocrites’.

There were also clashes between mourners and authorities Tuesday eveningin Najafabad

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

End/ (Not Continued)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....