Iranian Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri dies

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Vidhi M

20 December, 2009

The hardliners branded Hossein Ali Montazeri as secular because of his critique of Ayatollah Khamenei, the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini. He was also against the current leadership of the country, President Mahmoud Ahmednijad

CRITIC OF President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the Iranian Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri died on Saturday night in his sleep at home in Qom. Reports suggest that he had been struggling with an illness for some time.

Hossein Ali Montazeri had been an heir of the revolutionary Ayatollah Khomeini who had dismissed him from this position in March 1989 for "criticising the Islamic system". The moderate Ayatollah remained a well respected religious figure, who was supported by many politicians.

The hardliners, in both religion and poltics, however, branded him as secular because of his critique of Ayatollah Khamenei, the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader. He was also against the current leadership of the country, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and accused him of being a dictator.

Hossein Ali Montazeri felth that the Iranian election system, under the present conditions was not a genuine and fair competiton. He also attacked the forign policies of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad claiming, sanctions against Iran were only due to the errors committed by Islamic republic and the provocations of the Ahmedinehad government.

He was therefore regarded as a dissident and put under house arrest in 1997. In 2001, he suffered a heart attack just after his release from the house arrest and was hospitalised for a long time. Now, at the time of his death, the state television seems to have chosen to ignore it, by not giving any special attention to it.

So far, only Grand Ayatollah Yussef Sanei who is also a critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expressed his condolences for losing Hossein Ali Montazeri.