Top Iran cleric criticises hard-liners in sermon: Via The Independent(UK).

A powerful cleric-politician, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, criticised Iran's leadership today on one of the country's most resonant political stages, the Islamic prayer sermon. In a boost for the opposition, he said the leadership must clear up doubts over the disputed presidential election and warned of a "crisis."

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters packed the weekly prayers at Tehran University, chanting slogans in a show of strength to hear Rafsanjani, who was delivering the sermon for the first time since Iran's election turmoil began a month ago. In the front row was opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to have won the June 12 election.

Outside the university, more opposition supporters gathered in a rally after the prayers, chanting "death to the dictator" and "coup government, resignation, resignation." Pro-government Basiji militiamen fired volleys of tear gas at the crowd, said witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation.
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Iran opposition leader, wife visit slain man's family: Via Los Angeles Times.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife are swarmed by supporters near the home. His plans to form a political front win the backing of powerful cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a key conservative.

Reporting from Beirut -- Iran's leading opposition figure and his wife emerged Tuesday night to pay their respects to the family of a 19-year-old man slain in the nation's recent weeks of violence, according to witnesses and reports on news websites.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his popular wife, Zahra Rahnavard, visited the family of Sohrab Aarabi in Tehran, paying tribute to the teenager whose death and whose mother's weeks-long quest to find him have emerged as symbols of the protest movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Photographs posted on the Gooya website showed Mousavi and Rahnavard swarmed by supporters as they approached the family's home in the city's north-central Apadana district.
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After a long absence, pro-Mousavi cleric Rafsanjani to lead prayers: Via Los Angeles Times.

Former President Mohammad Khatami reportedly will also attend Iran's weekly keynote sermon Friday. The reformists' return to the event can be seen as a challenge to hard-liners or a sign of a truce

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Reporting from Beirut -- A powerful cleric who has been a driving force behind the opposition movement challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will lead Friday prayers this week after a two-month absence that was considered a sign of conflict within the Iranian establishment.

The semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Sunday that Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will deliver the nation's weekly keynote religious sermon.
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Iran's Steely Chief Cleric Steps Forward - washingtonpost.com: Via washingtonpost.com .

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who warned at Friday prayers of continued demonstrations leading to "bloodshed," has held the title of supreme leader of the revolution for 20 years, twice as long as the man for whom the title was created. In laying down an ultimatum to protesters demonstrating against alleged vote fraud, Khamenei showed the steel that got him the job.

Thirty years ago, Khamenei's mentor, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, swept to power in Iran when the monarch running the ancient country backed away from a similar challenge. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's decision to flee in the face of a rising revolt left the country to Khomeini, a coal-eyed cleric whose righteous persona and unquestioned religious credentials personified the 1979 Islamic revolution he instigated from exile and dominated upon his triumphant return.

But when Khomeini died 10 years later, he left no successor. The grand ayatollah widely expected to follow him, Hossein Ali Montazeri, lost his place by expressing revulsion at violence committed in the name of the revolution.

"I surely would follow you up to the entrance of hell," Montazeri wrote to his mentor, Khomeini, in 1988, when political prisoners were being hanged by the hundreds each day. "But I am not ready to follow you in."
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