Hossein Shariatmadari the chief editor of conservative newspaper ‘Kayhan’ has invited members of the Iranian Ansar al-Hezbollah to also attend this week’s Friday Prayers. According to Shariatmadari, “there are those who are planning to disrupt tomorrow’s prayer and we must be there to stop them, and our chants should be in favor of the Supreme Leader.” Shariatmadari went on to warn Rafsanjani that he should not fuel the flames of the “hooligans.” “Rafsanjani must avoid supporting the hooligans in his sermon; he must keep in mind that supporting the hooligans is support for the enemy.”
Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ezhei has also warned Rafsanjani and the participants of the Friday prayer “to be clever and not turn the Friday Prayer into an offensive scene,” BBC Persian reports.
July 16, 2009