D.R.I.PPredictably, the BBC today covers the death of Iranian "reformist" cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri with a treacly biography that seeks to paint him as a "moderate" alternative to current President Mahoud Ahmadinejad, who he did admittedly oppose for political reasons.
Unmentioned by the BBC, Montazeri was an upholder of the age-old Shi'ite doctrine of najis, which teaches that non-Muslims are not only spiritually impure, but also physically unclean. In her in-depth analysis of the status of non-Muslims under the rule of the Islamic Revolution, Eliz Sanasarian demonstrates how, as a direct result of najis policies which were championed by Montazeri, non-Muslims in Iran were subjected to institutionalised discrimination. For example, non-Muslims were denied production jobs because Muslims refused to touch goods that had been manufactured by infidels, for fear that Muslims would be "contaminated" by them.
Such is the man who is reduced by the BBC to a "reformist" and even a human rights advocate! In fact, the only reform Ayatollah Montazeri was interested in was a break away from the relatively moderate, secular Pahlavi rule and a return to the theocratic bigotry that had prevailed in the country since the early 1600s.
No comments:
Post a Comment