Iranian Ayatollah Sayyid Hossein Kazemeini Boroujerdi is much like to the the Iraqi Ayatollahs who study the main stream Iraqi Shiite school of Islam, that of separating politics from religion. The fundamentalist regime in Iran considered this moderate Ayatollah to be a threat to their control of the country.
Moderate Ayatollah Boroujerdi preached to massive crowds in Iran before his arrest.
Michael Ledeen wrote more on the arrest of Ayatollah Boroujerdi in 2006:
Anyone who acts against the most fundamental doctrine of the Iranian clerical fascist state is going to have a lot of trouble, and Ayatollah Boroujerdi has had plenty of it. He has been in and out of prison, and repeatedly in front of the Special Court for the Clergy, since 1994. According to Amnesty International, “he has reportedly developed heart and kidney problems as a result of torture.”
His latest round of defiance seems to have started in late June, when he preached to a large crowd in a Tehran sports stadium. A month later, on July 30th, the secret police came to his house, apparently to arrest him. But they found that he was protected by scores of supporters, so they arrested some of them instead. According to Amnesty, one of them had a heart attack and was moved to a nearby hospital. And another said that he was arrested at his home and dragged off to three weeks of solitary confinement and daily threats.
They tried again on August 3rd, and were again driven off by his defenders. A month later, Boroujerdi was visited by a government agent, and a tape recording of that conversation has been smuggled out of Iran. It was made available to me by Banafsheh Zand Bonazzi, a leading Iranian-American activist who lives in New York City.
The security agent told the Ayatollah that he, too, was a religious man, having attended a seminary after the revolution. He says that his visit is a kind of courtesy call, offering Boroujerdi the chance to surrender in a civilized way and then face trial. There is no escape possible, he says, for one way or another Boroujerdi will face charges of insulting the government and the clerisy, and perhaps even having been an accomplice to murder.
Boroujerdi will have none of this. He says that he has already prepared himself for martyrdom (and indeed when he was arrested on Sunday, he was wearing a funeral shroud). He tells the agent that he has already suffered a heart attack, and that he will now contact the foreign press. This enrages the agent, who warns Boroujerdi that no place will be safe for him, even the mosque. He brags that Boroujerdi’s father was murdered, and says that he doesn’t give a damn about the foreign press, which he calls meaningless.
Followers of the ayatollah stand guard at his home before his arrest in 2006. (ISNA)The secret police came again for Boroujerdi on the morning of September 28th, again found he was defended, and again dragged off many of his supporters. In its press release five days later, Amnesty demonstrated its celebrated droll sense of humor, writing that “there are fears that the Ayatollah may be at risk of imminent arrest.” But at least they wrote.
Boroujerdi was dragged off to his destiny on Sunday, in a dramatic confrontation that involved thousands of demonstrators, some in Tehran, and some on the road to Qom, where many of the country’s most prestigious religious schools and scholars are located.
Today there are reports from Iran that Ayatollah Boroujerdi and other clerics in the notorious Evin Prison pulled off a revolt against the officials.
They were beaten mercilessly by the prison guards.
AKI reported:
A revolt by jailed Iranian religious clerics in capital Tehran was quelled by Iranian special police forces on Thursday.
The revolt began on Wednesday night at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison at the number 500 wing of the jail, reserved for clerics, due to the jail’s director decision of forbidding detainees from using telephones to communicate with lawyers and family members.
Reportedly, some of the detained have been severely injured and are recovering in the prison’s infirmary, said the family of Ayatollah Kazemeini Brujerdi (Boroujerdi), a prominent religious leader jailed along with his supporters a year ago and charged with ‘heresy’.
Brujerdi’s family says the religious leader is recovering from heart failure due to inhalation of teargas thrown inside the jail cell by police.
Previously:
Turmoil in Tehran! Secular Cleric’s Followers Clash With Regime!
Noted Iranian Activist Arrested With Ayatollah Boroujerdi
Ayatollah Persecution in the Mullacracy
Moderate Ayatollah Boroujerdi Sentenced to Death in Iran
Help Save Iranian Ayatollah Boroujerdi!
