People's Rep vs The Imam

A heated exchange between one of Iran’s most controversial politicians and a Friday imam has sparked renewed debate on the value of public engagement and political debate.

On March 13, a gang of dozens of motorcyclists attacked Tehran MP Ali Motahari as he arrived at Shiraz Airport. He had been scheduled to address an audience at Shiraz University.

Following the attack, Shiraz’s temporary Friday imam, Asadollah Imani, told worshippers that it was no surprise that Motahari had been assaulted. The MP said this amounted to the imam justifying the attack – and even supporting those who carried it out.

“Can anyone who breaks the sanctum of the Supreme Leadership and the Assembly of Experts expect others not to break his own sanctum? Isn’t it true that if you plant wind, you will harvest a storm?” Imani, who is also a representative for the Supreme Leader, said.

“I am happy that you revealed your role in this incident,” Motahari said in a response to the cleric, published in an open letter. ”The investigating board of the Ministry of Interior should consider you a suspect.” The letter was published on the Anar Press website.

“With these two sentences, you have shown your support for the assailants and approved them,” Motahari wrote. “I hope the other accused who provided these rascals with heavy motorcycles and pepper gas will confess like you — though everybody already knows who they are.”  

According to Motahari, Imani dismissed the dramatic events of March 13, downplaying it as “a “political issue” without recognizing what it meant for the country’s wider “human, ethical and legal” concerns. “A group of armed mercenaries attacked a parliamentarian invited by Shiraz University to speak — with the intention of killing him... I wish you had been there beside me to see if one of those bricks had hit your auspicious head. Would your judgment still be the same?”

The cleric said that Shiraz and Iran were currently suffering from a range of problems, including unemployment, factory closures, drought and poverty, and it was questionable whether this was the right time to have asked Motahari to raise other, less immediate issues. “It is difficult to see the connection between these issues and the cancellation of a scientific intellectual speech,” Motahari wrote. “Actually, such speeches can help to solve our existing social economic issues. If not, then all religious, scientific and intellectual speeches should be cancelled in Shiraz!”

“A speech at the university has nothing to do with the Friday imam. Why should he interfere with what happens in the city?”

Motahari warned the cleric that such interference led to trouble, pointing to the political wrangling between the Revolutionary Guards and parliament in the 1980s. “Imam Khomeini said what is going on in parliament has nothing to do with the Guards. People should carry out their roles properly, instead of interfering with other people’s business.”

As well as using some of the imam’s own language as part of his counter-attack against him, the controversial MP — who has challenged parliament over the continued house arrest of Green Movement leaders — issued a direct threat to Imani: “Your turn will come soon. By sharpening the knife of sentiments in the hands of some ignorant young men, you will cut your own hand one day.”

Motahari not only supported engagement through public speaking, he suggested that open debate was necessary part of society – and that it was not a crime to disagree with the Supreme Leader on some issues.

“I have said that the Assembly of Experts should supervise the functioning of the system under the leadership... But, based on your views, the Constitution has broken the sanctum of Assembly of Experts. You think that if anybody doesn’t agree with the Supreme Leader about certain issues, that person has broken his sanctum....”

Motahari’s letter was angry and expansive – and, since it was published in the media, obviously meant for an even bigger audience he would have enjoyed had the Shiraz event gone ahead.

“I proclaim to you and your friends that I will not allow oppression to dominate this country. I am ready to sacrifice my life for the great ideal of the Islamic Revolution: freedom of thought and expression.”

Read the original article in Persian

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