GIVE THE MAN A HAMMER; HE'S GOT SOME THESES

Iran's rulers 'should call referendum'Pam O'Toole, 8/07/03, BBC)

The grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has made a stinging attack on the country's current Islamic system and rulers.

In an interview with the BBC Persian Service, Hossein Khomeini, a hojatoleslam - or middle ranking clergyman - accused the current rulers of oppressing the Iranian people and committing human rights abuses. [...]

Hojatoleslam Khomeini questioned the principle of velayat faqih, or Islamic jurisprudence, upon which the system is based.

He added that, if his grandfather were alive today, he would have opposed all of Iran's current leaders because of what he described as their excesses and wrongdoing.

These people, he alleged, did not even carry out their own Islamic beliefs.

They were guilty of oppressing the Iranian population, killing people or jailing them for no reason.

As for the reformists, he said, they were finished. [...]

His comments mark one of the clearest and strongest rejections of the Islamic system of government by an Iranian cleric.

They will be seen as particularly significant because they have been made by the grandson of the man whose name has become synonymous with Iran's Islamic Revolution.

How fitting if the great Islamic reformer of the day turns out to be the grandson of the Ayatollah who in many ways started the downward spiral that has brought us to the point where such reform is required. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2003 11:02 PM