On the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s passing, Mehdi Karroubi made a statement regarding Imam Khomeini’s governmental conduct. In his statement Mehdi Karroubi says: “They have damaged and weakened the Republic in the name of Islam and I bluntly say that we are now seriously concern about the Islamic part of the regime.” Regarding Imam Khomeini’s view of spiritual leaders, he added: “Imam paid particular attention so that the spiritual leadership remains protected and does not get harmed.” Regarding Imam Khomeini’s conduct in abiding to the law, he added: “Both in his will and in his actions and conducts, Imam was strongly opposed to armed forces entering in political groups. [The armed forces] can protect the revolution but at the same time should not interfere so that one can get the vote or someone else.”

Khomeini’s granddaugher, Zahra Eshraghi, was taken into custody along with her husband, reformist leader Mohamed Reza Khatami. She wasn’t in police custody for very long, but it was long enough to highlight the Khomenei family’s opposition to the increasingly authoritarian rule by the Ayatollah’s successors.

Eshraghi is the latest Khomeini to signal her displeasure with the ruling regime, and the Khomeini name is a powerful force in Iran.

“Khomenei’s family is on the green movement side, and the oldest male heir has come out in the past week, denouncing the way the state-controlled media has been abusing Khomenei’s words and taking them out of context,” Iran analyst Hadi Ghaemi told ABC News, referring to the Ayatollah’s grandson, Hassan Khomeini.

Ahead of Thursday’s protests marking the 20th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Hassan Khomeini had criticized the regime for running clips of his grandfather that explicitly discourage public protests without government permission. The younger Khomeini wrote a highly-publicized letter accusing the state-backed television network of trying to “distort’ the character of the Iman.

Hassan Khomeini, identified as the representative of his family and caretaker of the Ayatollah’s shrine, caused a stir when reports surface in The Guardian newspaper that he had left Iran in the aftermath of the disputed June election. Khomenei, the newspaper reported, was avoiding pressure to endorse President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s electoral win. Khomeini later refused to attend Ahmadinejad’s inauguration and swearing-in ceremonies, reported Payvand news.

“He has made it very, very clear where he stands,” said analyst Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council. “He even negated the regime’s accusations that protesters had slandered and burned his grandfather’s image.”

Eshraghi, Khomeini’s granddaughter, has been an outspoken advocate of women’s rights. Last year she told the Christian Science Monitor her grandfather would be “disappointed” with the current restrictions on the lives of Iranian women, who do not carry the same legal rights as men.

One of Mousavi’s advisors, Dr. Alireza Beheshti, is a relative of Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomenei’s closest confidantes. Last week Hassan Khomeini reportedly visited Beheshti’s home, a clear and public sign of support. Go to ABC News.

It is a supreme irony that on the 31st anniversary of Iran’s revolution, the government’s hardliners are linking the household of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic, to an opposition which they claim seeks regime change.

Hassan Khomeini, the 38-year-old grandson of the late leader, has emerged as a quiet but persistent supporter of the opposition Green Movement. He backed Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the reformist candidate in last June’s presidential election, and refused to attend the swearing-in of the proclaimed victor of that contest, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

Last week Mr Khomeini accompanied the fundamentalist president to his grandfather’s shrine, but left as soon as Mr Ahmadi-Nejad started his speech.

The Ayatollah’s descendant instead went to visit the family of Alireza Beheshti, an imprisoned ally of Mr Moussavi. A picture of Mr Khomeini with Mr Beheshti’s two daughters on his knee swept Iranian news websites.

Supporters of the former insist that Khomeini believed the regime’s legitimacy is derived from the ballot box. Meanwhile, allies of Ayatollah Khamenei would argue that God confers legitimacy on the government and indirectly appoints the supreme leader.

Both sides claim to be the true defenders of Khomeini’s legacy. Hardliners argue that strong revolutionary backgrounds do not give any special privileges. Go to Financial Times.

IND: One can’t be a supporter of Khomeini and be a democrat.  Khomeini’s ideas were the antithesis of democracy.  Like Gorbachev, Mousavi is trying to reform a regime that ultimately is not reformable.  Although tactically it is understandable that the Green leaders don’t want to push the envelope too far too fast, they have to come to terms with this contradiction.

For conservatives, Khomeini represents unfolding loyalty to the religious hierarchy and the main institutions of the state, even at the expense of public opinion. For reformists and even some young Iranians, Khomeini’s promised benefits of Iran’s 1979 Revolution can only come true if a genuine democratic government is allowed to emerge out of the current system. And then there is the Khomeini as seen by a third and growing segment of Iranians: those who are disillusioned with any notion of Islamic democracy — an “oxymoron” for some of the Tehran students who spoke to TIME. They expressed little anger at the video of Khomeini’s image being torn, fake or not. They had no real feelings for him. Go to Time.