The second most powerful Iranian religious leader charged yesterday that the new Islamic Constitution that grants absolute power to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would lead to the dissolution of political parties in Iran on the pretext that they were “Zionist” or pro-American and imperialist. Ayatollah kazem Shariat-Madari publicly challenged Khomeini for the first time at a press conference with Iranian and Western journalists in Tabriz.
His statement was in reply to demands from pro-Khomeini clerical groups that he disband his independent Moslem People’s Party. “The point I must make to you respectable gentlemen is with the present government’s methods there is no need for the founders to dissolve the party. The government will gradually dissolve all the parties by labeling them as American, Zionist and anti-Islamic, “Madari said.
“Therefore,” he added, “do not worry about this … attributing to anybody or any group imperialism or Zionism can be easily done by controlling the mass media, but testifying to righteousness and justice is a very difficult thing to do.”
Madari refused to denounce the anti-Khomeini uprising by Turkish-speaking Iranians in Azerbaijan province of which Tabriz is the capital. He announced that he did not take part in the referendum that approved Khomeini’s constitution last week despite Khomeini’s exhortation that it was the religious duty of every Moslem. He also warned that Khomeini is courting a civil war in Iran.
NEWS AGENCIES DENOUNCED AS ZIONIST
In Teheran, meanwhile, the official Pars News Agency issued a statement today accusing-Western news agencies of being “at the service of Zionism, imperialism and international trusts and, above all, America.” The statement, headlined “May The Windpipe of Imperialism and Zionism Be Cut,” charged that Western journalists “believe it is to be their main duty to act as the mouthpiece of international Zionism in exploiting and colonizing the oppressed nations of the world and the deprived of the world in particular.”
The Pars News Agency serves the Islamic Society of Pars. The statement, published in the Parsi language, called for a demonstration against Western news agencies this Sunday. The demonstration was advertised prominently in the newspaper Islamic Republic, the mouthpiece of Khomeini’s ruling clergy.
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