In an open letter, a group of employees of Iran’s Interior Ministry (which supervises the elections) warned the nation that a hard-line ayatollah, who supports President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has issued a Fatwa authorizing changing votes in the incumbent’s favor.
They warned that the same thing happened in the elections for the 8th Majles (parliament), in March 2006, in order to change the vote in favor of the principlists (fundamentalists) allied with the president; but, fearing for their jobs, they had kept silent then.
The authors of the letter state that a copy of the letter has been sent to the President of the Assembly of Experts (a constitutional body that selects the Supreme Leader and monitors his performance) and to former president and powerful politician, Mr. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the Speaker of the Majles (the parliament) Dr. Ali Larijani; the Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi; the Chair of the Committee for protecting People’s Vote, Mr. Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour (a leftist cleric and supporter of Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi); all the candidates, as well as the office of the Supreme Leader, in order to warn all the important national figures.
The letter states,
After several polls taken by the government in May that indicated a rapid loss of support for the President, an ayatollah, who used to speak about political philosophy in Tehran’s public Friday prayers, held a confidential meeting with the elections’ supervisors. Quoting the Bagharah Soureh, verse 249, of the holy Quran, to justify vote fraud, he stated that,
“If someone is elected the president and hurts the Islamic values that have been spread [by Mr. Ahmadinejad] to Lebanon, Palestine, Venezuela, and other places, it is against Islam to vote for that person. We should not vote for that person, and also warn people about that person. It is your religious duty as the supervisors of the elections to do so.”
via Open Letter: Fatwa Issued for Changing the Vote in Favor of Ahmadinejad – tehranbureau.
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