Ruhollah Hosseinian
Encyclopedia
Hojatoleslam
Hojatoleslam
Hujjat al-Islam is an honorific title meaning "authority on Islam" or "proof of Islam", given to Twelver Shī‘ah clerics...

 Ruhollah Hosseinian ' onMouseout='HidePop("12779")' href="/topics/Shiraz">Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...

) is an Iranian Principalist politician.

He served in the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (or VEVAK) as deputy to Ali Fallahian
Ali Fallahian
Hojatoleslam Ali Fallahian, is an Iranian politician and cleric. He has served as a member of the 3rd Assembly of Experts of the IRI and as the Minister of Intelligence of Islamic Republic of Iran in cabinet of President Hashemi Rafsanjani...

 and in April 2007 was appointed by President
President of Iran
The President of Iran is the highest popularly elected official in, and the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; although subordinate to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state...

 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the security advisor to the president.

He is a member of Board of Trustees of Islamic Revolution Document Center. and since 2007 has been a member of the Council for Spreading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Thoughts
Council for Spreading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Thoughts
The Council for Spreading President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Thoughts is an official high-council, established by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government in order to spread the philosophy, ideology and sociology of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.The aim of the council "to define and guard over the thought...

. As of January 2011 he was a member of parliament

Chain Murders

In 1998 a series of murders
Chain murders of Iran
The Chain Murders of Iran , or Serial Murders, were a series of murders and disappearances from 1988-1998 by Iranian government operatives of Iranian dissident intellectuals who had been critical of the Islamic Republic system in some way.The victims included more than 80 writers, translators,...

 of dissident Iranian intellectuals came to light, called "the Chain Murders", widely thought to be an attempt to intimidate Iranian reformists. On January 4, 1999, the Intelligence Ministry issued a statement admitting that its own agents had committed the murders and stating that they were led by a rogue officer, Saeed Emami
Saeed Emami
Saeed Emami was the Iranian deputy minister of intelligence under Ali Fallahian, and an intelligence officer under Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi. The Islamic government accused him of having independently organized the assassinations of dissidents shortly after he allegedly committing...

.

Hosseinian made a number of statements about the murders. Shortly after the ministry admission he claimed that Emami was innocent of the crimes which were actually the work of President Khatami
Khatami
-Politicians:* Mohammad Khatami , Iranian reformist President, former President of Iran * Mohammad Reza Khatami , Iranian reformist politician, Vice Speaker of Iranian Parliament and brother of Mohammad Khatami...

's reformists .

According to Muhammad Sahimi of the Tehran Bureau
Tehran Bureau
Tehran Bureau is an online news magazine covering politics, foreign affairs, culture and society in Iran and the Iranian Diaspora. It was founded by Iranian-born journalist Kelly Golnoush Niknejad in February 2008, initially as a blog...

, on January 12, 1999, Hosseinian appeared on the TV program Cheraq (Light), where he claimed both that reformists had murdered the victims and that the murders could be justified. Some of the victims were apostates,

while others had insulted the Prophet
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

, his family, and the Imams. He also said that the murderers had been Islamic leftists in the 1980s and had strongly supported Mohammad Khatami
Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khātamī is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, Shiite theologian and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s...

 in his presidential campaign for president. Later on, at the Haghani School -- run by ... Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi
Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi
Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi is a hardline Iranian Twelver Shi'i cleric and politician who is widely seen as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual advisor. He is also a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for choosing the Supreme Leader, where he heads...

 -- Hosseinian said that Mostafa Kazemi had masterminded the murders to create fissures between Khatami and Khamenei, and allow the former to seize power. He also acknowledged, "The issue of the murders has captured us. Whatever we do to escape it, we find to way to escape."
According to another report, Hojatoleslam Hosseinian has stated that Saeed Emami
Saeed Emami
Saeed Emami was the Iranian deputy minister of intelligence under Ali Fallahian, and an intelligence officer under Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi. The Islamic government accused him of having independently organized the assassinations of dissidents shortly after he allegedly committing...

 was killed in order to "prevent identification of higher clerical authorities that ordered the killings
Chain murders of Iran
The Chain Murders of Iran , or Serial Murders, were a series of murders and disappearances from 1988-1998 by Iranian government operatives of Iranian dissident intellectuals who had been critical of the Islamic Republic system in some way.The victims included more than 80 writers, translators,...

".

However, reformers of the Islamic Republic have charged that Hosseinian, who had worked for the Intelligence Ministry at this time, had inspired the murders. Ali Larijani
Ali Larijani
Ali Ardashir Larijani is an Iranian philosopher, politician and the chairman of the Iranian parliament. Larijani was the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from August 15, 2005 to October 20, 2007, appointed to the position by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,replacing Hassan Rowhani...

who had allowed this accusation to be broadcast on Iranian television was banned from attending Cabinet sessions.

Further reading

  • Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Twenty-First Century Iran ISBN 9780805072990

External links

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