Former Iranian president Mohamed Khatami could be tried by a religious tribunal and banned from preaching over a handshake, Iranian conservative papers report. Websites close to the ultraconservative government of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad such as Rajanews and Ansarnews said on Friday that an increasing number of clerics in the holy Shiite city of Qom believe the moderate cleric who was president of Iran from 1997 to 2005 should be convicted for his behaviour as recently demanded by Ahmadinejad's official biographer, Fatemeh Rajabi.
Rajabi is the wife of justice minister Gholam Hossein Elham, who also acts as a government spokesman.
In a recent article, Ahmadinejad's biographer wrote that "the history of Shiism in Iran has never witnessed such insolence by a member of the clergy."
Kayhan, the influential Tehran-based conservative paper directed by Hossein Shariatmadari, who is very close to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, dedicated to such an i"impure contact" an editorial accusing Khatami of having fall prey to Washington and all the "enemies of our revolution and Islam."
On 12 June, the Baran foundation of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami issued a statement denying the cleric had intentionally shaken hands with women - as shown in footage of a recent trip to Italy broadcast on 'YouTube' - a gesture prohibited under Iran's strict interpretation of Islamic law banning all physical contact between men and women who are not related. The statement indicated either the footage had been edited to give a false impression or else Khatami had shaken the hands of people in a crowd without realising they were female.
The footage shows the president speaking to and then exchanging a handshake with Gianola and Cristina Nonnino, well known local producers of grappa, or husk brandy, in the northeastern Italian city of Udine during a visit last month. |