The Five-Year House Arrest of Ayatollah Montazeri Will Be Lifted

According to the official news agency of Iran, the authorities of the Islamic Republic have lifted the five-year house arrest of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. The National Security Council announced today that Ayatollah Montazeri will be released tomorrow. Mr. Montazeri, who is eighty-one years old and ill, has been under house arrest in Qom since 1997. The decision to lift Ayatollah Montazeri's house arrest was made following efforts and correspondence from over one hundred members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Lawmakers had asked President Mohammad Khatami to facilitate Ayatollah Montazeri's release. Montazeri was once considered the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini but was forced to resign due to criticisms he made just before Khomeini's death in 1989. In 1997, following a speech that criticized the current leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei, a house arrest order was issued for Mr. Montazeri. Meanwhile, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, which is controlled by extremists, today lifted the suspension of Hamshahri, the country's best-selling newspaper. The ten-day suspension of Hamshahri was issued on Wednesday following a complaint from one of the leaders of labor unions against the newspaper for failing to publish a response to a critical article.