Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a learned and independent-minded cleric, was once Khomeini's anointed successor as supreme leader.

ECONOMIST: The people against the mullahs

Iranian newspapers were summoned to court for publishing extracts from a written interview that Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri , Iran's most senior dissident, long under house arrest, had given a British newspaper.

ECONOMIST: Rotten Democrats

In the 1980s, the movement's members made common cause with Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, considered at the time to be the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's heir, when he criticised the conduct of the war against Iraq.

ECONOMIST: Iranian liberals on trial