نشرت مجلة التايم الصادرة في اوروبا مقالاً
حول وفاة السيد الشيرازي (قدس سره)، يوم الجمعة 21/12/2001م جاء فيه...
Invasion of the Corpse Snatchers
The Islamic Republic of Iran routinely
harasses political dissidents while they're alive, but until now has
refrained from punishing them posthumously. Followers of Grand Ayatollah
Mohammad Hosseini Shirazi — who died of a stroke last week in the holy
city of Qom — have been arrested and imprisoned over the years for
supporting the cleric's opposition to the Islamic regime.
With Shirazi's death, the saga of state
intimidation and years of house arrest seemed over. But special police in
camouflage gear stormed the funeral procession, beat pall-bearers and
stole the Ayatollah's corpse, which fell from its coffin twice during the
scuffle. "If it's true, it will be among the blackest moments in the
Islamic Republic's history," whispered one aghast cleric in Tehran.
Black-clad mourners filled Qom's Chaharmardan Street as they proceeded
toward Shirazi's home. In his will, the cleric asked to be buried
temporarily in Qom until it was possible to be removed permanently to the
holy Iraqi city of Karbala, where he spent his early years. The security
forces descended on the procession and spirited the corpse away to a
waiting minibus. With neither the presence of his family nor their
permission, they buried Shirazi at the Hazrat Massoumeh Shrine in Qom.
Still reeling from the sight of the cleric's corpse falling into the
street, one of Shirazi's daughters-in-law said local authorities prevented
his transfer to a better hospital in Tehran shortly after his stroke.
"After this we suspect everything," she said.
The next day, few Iranians knew such a dramatic scene had transpired.
State television broadcast orderly scenes from the funeral procession,
showing supporters in the unlikely pose of hoisting photos of Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei, who sent a message of condolence to Shirazi's family.
Iranian newspapers reported nothing of the disturbance in Qom, and made no
mention of the cleric's views in obituaries. The total news blackout,
along with the refusal of officials to comment, reveals just how
threatened the establishment feels by even the quiet resistance of
clerics.
The desecration of Shirazi's corpse is a monumental embarrassment for the
regime, not least because of the cleric's rank: he was one of fewer than
20 Iranian grand ayatollahs, the highest order in Shi'a Islam. And coming
at a time when the Islamic Republic has "grown up" — which seems to mean
that opposition activists are railroaded through the courts instead of
being left strangled by the roadside — the raid is a clear message: even
in these kinder, gentler times, crossing the lines can have perilous
consequences. In Shirazi's case, the lines included questioning the
supreme religious leader's absolute power and the theological merits of
the man who currently holds that position, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These
academic-sounding matters are at the center of a fierce battle in Iran
between progressive mullahs like Shirazi who want to democratize the
country and hardliners who justify their repressive rule in God's name.
Over the past decade, the Islamic regime has arrested around 500 clerics
for their democratic interpretation of religious principles. Even by these
harsh standards, though, the macabre disruption at Shirazi's funeral shows
how Iran is still trying to reconcile theocracy with democracy. |