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As Regime Turns Up The Heat, Iran’s Rafsanjani Abides
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Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and Expediency Council Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani with an unidentified cleric (left to right) at a memorial ceremony in Tehran on March 23, 2009.
As such, he is usually highly visible in his official functions, which include periodically leading Friday prayers at Tehran’s mosque — an event broadcast nationally on state TV.
But amid the street protests since Iran’s disputed presidential election in June, Rafsanjani has all but vanished from the television screen.
His last appearance on television was during February’s observance of the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, when he and other leaders urged people to take part in regime-sponsored rallies.
Prior to that, he had not been seen since July 17, when he famously acknowledged opposition “doubts” over the election results. That was as he led Friday prayers at the Tehran University mosque. The TV station edited out the crowd’s chants of support and, since then, Rafsanjani — who used to lead prayers once a month — has been replaced on each occasion by a lower-level cleric.
Lives Made Difficult
Has Rafsanjani been banned from state television, or has he willingly foregone public appearances? No one can answer that question definitively today. But his absence, combined with other recent events, can’t help but give the impression he is under siege.
That sense of siege, as well as repeated, brief arrests of Rafsanjani family members, is the latest sign of how deeply Iran’s establishment has split over the Green Movement, even as protesters have been driven from the streets.
This month, security services arrested Rafsanjani’s grandson, Hassan Lahooti, then released him again. A Revolutionary Court later accused Lahooti, whose phone was tapped, of criticizing the supreme leader.
Similarly, security services this month arrested and released Rafsanjani’s brother-in-law, Hussein Marashi, on charges of corruption.
Rafsanjani’s grandson, Hassan Lahouti, has been accused of insulting the supreme leader.
The arrests continue a pattern of harassment of Rafsanjani’s family members that included detaining Rafsanjani’s daughter at the height of the Green Movement protests. His daughter, Faiza Hashemi, had condemned the police’s use of force against demonstrators.
In the face of such attacks, Rafsanjani — who is famous for working behind the scenes — has said little. But this month, he appeared on his personal website to deliver the closest he has come yet to a public rebuke of Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
Using the carefully coded language of the Iranian clerical establishment, he asserted that “the voices of those with fossilized mentalities can be heard much more loudly today than they were during the Islamic Revolution.”
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