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Top Iran dissident cleric Montazeri dies at 87
Reuters - 2 hours 54 minutes ago
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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN - Iran's top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a fierce critic of the hardline leadership who denounced June's disputed election as fraudulent, has died at the age of 87.
The moderate Parlemannews website said supporters of Montazeri, an architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, were flocking to the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom to attend his funeral on Monday.
Iran's opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi urged their supporters on Sunday to attend Montazeri's funeral on Monday, announcing a day of national mourning, the reformist Jaras website reported.
The reformist Tagheer website said pro-opposition Iranians were gathering in Tehran squares to mourn and that riot police were out in parts of Qom, where Montazeri lived and died.
His death from a heart attack, reported by official media on Sunday, coincides with tension rising once again in the Islamic Republic, six months after the presidential poll plunged the major oil producer into political crisis.
"My grandfather died in his sleep last night. People and friends are coming to express their condolences but there are no special security measures around our house," Naser Montazeri said by phone from Qom, some 125 km south of Tehran.
Mike Hammer, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, expressed condolences on the ayatollah's passing, adding: "He was known and internationally respected for his unwavering commitment to universal rights."
Monday's burial, to start at 9 a.m. and take place at Qom's main shrine, is expected to become a rallying point for the reformist opposition and this may worry the authorities, London-based Iran analyst Baqer Moin said.
"The amount of support shown to him will hearten the opposition who are mourning his loss," Moin said.
Hundreds of Montazeri supporters took to the streets in his home town of Najafabad, both mourning his loss and chanting slogans, video posted on the Internet showed. Shops in the traditionally moderate town were closed and cloaked in black cloth pinned with pictures of the late cleric.
"Montazeri, congratulations on your freedom," the crowd chanted, and "Dictator, dictator, Montazeri's path will be followed."
The Jaras website said a pro-reform cleric, Ahmad Qabel, was detained on Sunday on his way to the funeral ceremony in Qom from the northeastern city of Mashhad. He was a student of Montazeri and was travelling with friends and family.
The reports were not possible to verify independently, as foreign media have been banned from reporting on protests and also from travelling to Qom for Montazeri's funeral.
"FRUIT OF MY LIFE"
Montazeri was named in the 1980s to succeed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran's top authority, but fell out with him over the mass execution of prisoners.
One of Iran's most senior clerics, he spent five years under house arrest until 2002 but remained a leading opposition voice until his death, even though he rarely left his home.
Karim Sadjadpour, associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Montazeri was the "religious patron" of the reform movement.
"Given his old age and his isolation he didn't provide strategic leadership to the opposition, but it was far more difficult for the regime to paint the green movement as 'anti-Islamic' when they had Montazeri on their side," he said.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini after his death in 1989, expressed his condolences, ISNA news agency reported.
Alluding to Montazeri's dispute with Khomeini, Khamenei said he asked God to forgive Montazeri over a "difficult and critical test" that he faced towards the end of Khomeini's life. Khamenei made clear his opinion that Montazeri failed the test.
Montazeri, who was a close ally of Khomeini before the revolution and jailed several times by the shah's police, was among the government's harshest critics in a clerical establishment where splits have widened since the election.
In August, the ayatollah said on his website that the authorities' handling of street unrest following the election "could lead to the fall of the regime" and he denounced the clerical leadership as a dictatorship.
The pro-reform opposition says the poll was rigged to secure hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.
The authorities have denied the charge and portrayed the huge opposition protests after the election, which were quelled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and Islamic militiamen, as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the clerical leadership.
Tension increased earlier this month when pro-opposition students clashed with the security forces armed with batons and tear gas in the biggest anti-government protest in months.
Khomeini once called Montazeri the "fruit of my life," but the official IRNA news agency said "problem elements" in Montazeri's household and his statements "appreciated by enemies of the Islamic Republic" were to blame for his estrangement with Khomeini two decades ago.
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