Iran Press Service reports:

Authorities confirmed the detention of Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeini Boroujerdi, on charges of “creating trouble for public order, endangering the lives of ordinary people and acts of violence” with using “thousands of pieces of colds and warm arms, including batons, knives, swords and light weapons” against Law Enforcement Forces.

According to Iranian political analysts, the arrest of Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the first after that of Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shari’atmadari soon after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 is a confirmation of the present Government to return to the early values of the Revolution…

“At a time that the regime is facing growing difficulties both at home and abroad, President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, on orders from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, is choosing crackdown, every kind and against any body, to divert attention”, one analyst told Iran Press Service.

So far, hundreds of clerics have been arrested, some defrocked, other left the ranks of the religion on their own, but most of them, including some popular political or intellectual figures such as Hojjatoleslam Abdollah Nouri, a former Interior Minister or Hojjatoleslam Yousefi Eshkevari, an intellectual, or Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Kadivar etc.. are all middle rank clerics, they noted.

“First of all, Mr. Broujerdi is not an ayatollah. Then, by creating a dissident, illegal sect, he has enrolled several trouble makers in Tehran and in neighbouring cities, starting acts of violences in the capital for sometimes”, Mr. Abdollah Roshan, a deputy for security and political issues at the Tehran governorate told the Iranian Labour News Agency ILNA.

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Previous posting

Shots have been fired today in the vicinty of the house of Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Kazeymeni Boroujerdi in Teheran, where several hundred supporters have blocked streets in an attempt to prevent Iranian security forces from arresting the Ayatollah who has called for the separation of religion and the state.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Persian Journal

Alan Peters

UPDATE 10/11

Boroujerdi Confirmed Arrested