Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead Friday’s Prayer in Tehran on 4 June to commemorate the 21th anniversary of the death of Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
"This week's Friday prayer on 14th of Khordad [4 June] which marks the divine departure of the founder of the Islamic Republic will be led by the guardian of all Muslims [Khamenei] in the shrine of the late Imam Khomeini,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
The 4 June Friday sermon by Khamenei will be his first since his sermon last year, on 19 June 2009, in which he openly defended Ahmadinejad’s re-election a week earlier amid widespread and deadly post-election street unrest, later to be known as the Green Movement, questioning the fairness of the election and the legitimacy of an Ahmadinejad victory.
5 comments:
Is he going to make an important announcement?
That is good. Ayatollah Khamenei has been a good stabilizing influence on Iranian body politic. He has remained untainted in the rough and tumble of Iranian backroom politics. His steady hand was very beneficial in soothing the post election brouhaha.
Anon 6:05,
You are very generous to Ayatollah Khamenei. If anything, he's been the key figure in last year's post-election disaster. If he wanted to play a stabilizing inflluence, he could have easily ordered a vote recount or a run-off election between the top two vote getters, Ahmaidinejad and Mousavi. Instead he sided with Ahmaidenejad and closed any possibility of compromise and stabilization in the rough and tumble of Iranian politics.
Dave,
Nothing very significant is expected in his sermon. More of the same, inviting people to rally around the government. His very appearance however is symbolically significant, coming almost to the day of the anniversary of post-election disasters, showing he's the undisputed leader notwithstanding the election results.
I would hardly consider Iran's elections a disaster. If anything, they consolidated the regime and by any fair objective measure Adhmadinajad had won anyway. Calling a recount would have only prolonged the mostly foreign funded agitation and more rioting by the "greens" would have followed. The simple fact remains that Ayatollah Khamenei wields wide ranging influence in the Islamic estabishment and the security apparatus. Even the once wily and now largely marginalized Rafsanjani avoided taking on Khamenei head-on. Contrary to the usual "experts" the regime at no time faced a mortal danger and Khamenei and the Sepah acted quickly to nip the storm in a tea-cup in the bud. I don't think he supported Ahmadinejad but wanted stability and reluctantly backed him or let Iran face chaos. My own reading is that the "opposition" is pretty much dead, rudderless and confused. Next weeks election anniversary will shed some light on it. The global situation is also now pretty much in Iran's favour, thanks to Zionist arrogance and savagery.
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