Iranian students protest against liberal cleric's arrest
TEHRAN, Mar 1 (AFP) - Iranian students staged a rally in the southern
town of Shiraz to protest the arrest of a leading liberal cleric close
to President Mohammad Khatami, sources close to prominent reformers said
Monday.
About 100 university students gathered Sunday night in Shiraz outside
the family home of Hojatoleslam Mohsen Kadivar to show their "support
and solidarity" for the detained cleric, they said.
Pro-reform newspapers on Monday blasted the arrest of Kadivar, who
was apprehended Saturday and jailed at Evin prison in Tehran.
The reformist cleric, in his 40s, is close to liberal circles as well
as dissident Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who was once tipped to become
the nation's supreme leader but was disgraced in 1989.
Kadivar's arrest was ordered by a special religious tribunal set up
in 1985 by the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
to rule on offences implicating members of the Shiite clergy in Iran.
Kadivar is thought to have been arrested after implicitly criticising
Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Last week, Kadivar was summoned several times to appear before the
tribunal "to provide explanations about his interviews and his speeches,"
the official IRNA news agency said Sunday.
The daily Jahan-e-Eslam, which is close to the government, said Kadivar
had been detained "for insulting" Khomeini and his successor
Khamenei and "for spreading propaganda in support of Ayatollah Montazeri."
Montazeri, who regularly denounces the conservatives' stranglehold
over the Iranian regime, has been under police surveillance for several
years.
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