Iran Cleric Calls Khamenei 'Dictator'
October 20, 2003
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press
TEHRAN -- Reformist cleric Mohsen Kadivar called Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a dictator late Monday at a fast-breaking meeting following a daylong fast in protest of the hard-line government.
"Your rule was expected to promote justice. What we see now is the rule of a dictator," Kadivar said, drawing wild applause from the audience.
Hundreds of reformist lawmakers, students and political activists held a daylong fast Monday to protest the hard-line establishment's crackdown on freedoms.
"We are refusing to eat and drink today to protest lack of legitimate freedoms and violation of the basic human rights of political prisoners," leading reformist lawmaker Ali Shakourirad told The Associated Press at the beginning of the fast.
Shakourirad was among more than 110 fasting reformist lawmakers from Iran's 290-seat parliament.
After sunset Monday, protesters met at the headquarters of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's largest reformist political party, to break their fast. Others attended fast-breaking meetings in provincial capitals.
Iran has been embroiled in a power struggle between elected reformers supporting President Mohammad Khatami's program of peaceful democratic reforms and hard-liners resisting them through powerful, but unelected, bodies they control.
Shakourirad urged hard-liners to "stop jailing Iran's best writers, teachers and intellectuals and abandon violating their rights."
Criticizing Khamenei is considered a taboo in Iran and critics are subject to punishment.
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