Iranian Reformists

Radical Cleric Montazeri Moves to Overthrow Government - December 1998

FarsiNet News - News related to Iran, Iranians and Persians - December 1998: "Iran dissident cleric wants secret police purged

TEHRAN (Reuters) -- Iran's most prominent dissident cleric called in a statement published Monday for a thorough purge of the cou ntry's secret police after revelations of death-squads in the organization.

Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, whose statement appeared in the moderate daily Khordad, called for a "deep and complete purge of the (Intelligence Ministry) personnel."

"This purge is an immediate necessity and should not be delayed. This action will regain the people's confidence," said Montazeri , who has often complained about police pressures.

He was echoing demands by backers of moderate President Mohammad Khatami who have called for the resignation of Intelligence Minister Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi after his ministry revealed last week that some of its agents were among those arrested for a recent spate of killing of dissidents.

Montazeri, a 76-year-old senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric, has lived under house arrest since he publicly criticized Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 1997.

The demands followed press reports that Khatami might take over the running of the ministry, ousting Dorri Najafabadi, a conservative minister imposed on the reformist president by powerful conservatives when he formed his cabinet in 1997.

Meanwhile a shadowy hard-line group hailed the killings and blasted the arrests, saying "brothers and dedicated friends" were targeted and vowing to take revenge.

"The Devotees of Pure Mohammedan Islam ... are determined this time to block with full force the main source of this sinister plot and extensive hypocrisy," the daily Hamshahri Sunday quoted the secret group as saying in a faxed statement.

It was not clear if the remarks were a threat against Khatami, who spearheaded the probe into the murders of a husband-and-wife team of dissidents and two secularist authors.

A third writer was found dead under mysterious circumstances and a fourth is presumed dead after going missing in August.

Little is known of the Devotees group, which has claimed an attack with sticks and iron bars in November on a busload of U.S. bus inessmen visiting Iran as tourists. No one was hurt.

The hard-line daily Kayhan Monday rejected the widely held view that hard-liners were behind the killings. It quoted Ruhollah Hosseinian, the head of a state archives center, as saying the arrested secret agents were supporters of Khatami.

Conservatives have rushed to Dorri Najafabadi's defense after Khamenei, who outranks Khatami, last week voiced support for the intelligence minister and his colleagues and said the killings were part of a foreign plot."

posted by JBOC @ 7:13 PM