Dozens of club-wielders and agents of the State Security Forces (SSF) attacked family members and followers of the late Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Shirazi, who had gone to visit his grave at the holy shrine of Hazrat Massoumah (the revered sister of the eighth Shiite Imam) in the city of Qom Tuesday night.
Armed with truncheons, the agents beat the pilgrims severely, injuring a number of them. The crowd, most of them women and children, reacted to the brutal attack by chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Office of Ayatollah Shirazi issued a statement, noting that the security forces had arrested a number of women and two clerics sent by the office to the holy shrine to mediate and kept them in detention until noon Wednesday.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi who died in the year 2000 was among opponents of Khomeini and religious despotism. In one of his books, entitled "Azadi” (Freedom), he renounced the principle of the velayat-e faqih (absolute supremacy of clerical rule), stressing that contrary to Khomeini’s velayat-e faqih doctrine, “Human beings are neither children nor mentally incapacitated, and therefore they do not need a guardian to take care of them.”
Ayatollah Jalal Ganje’i, Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Religions and Denominations, condemned the savage attack by the suppressive forces on Ayatollah Shirazi’s followers. "By having carried out the biggest internal political purge in the past 26 years and consolidating all levers of power in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards, Supreme Leader Khamenei has lost tremendous support among religious and clerical circles. This explains why he has resorted to widespread clampdown on clerics as well," Ayatollah Ganje’i added.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
August 13, 2005
