Rafsanjani ‘to deliver sermon this Friday’

Head of the Assembly of Experts and Chairman of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is to lead this week’s Friday prayers.

The website of influential cleric and politician Ayatollah Rafsanjani announced that he will lead the August 14 Friday prayers, Iran’s Labor News Agency reported.

The powerful cleric has criticized the government for mishandling the controversy over the election.

The move comes nearly four weeks after the two-time former president delivered a sermon at the Friday prayers in Tehran University.

After eight weeks of absence, Ayatollah Rafsanjani led the prayers on July 17 for the first time since the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

He told hundreds of thousands of worshipers — most of whom were opposition supporters — that the ambiguities surrounding the June 12 vote had led to the distrust of the Iranian nation in the establishment.

“Doubt has been created,” he said. “There are two currents; one has no doubt and is moving ahead. And the other is a large portion of the wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt.”

Following his sermon, fresh protests took place in the streets of the Iranian capital, provoking another crackdown on the demonstrators and worshippers who had crammed into downtown Tehran to attend the much-awaited sermon by Ayatollah Rafsanjani.

The announcement for the new sermon was made as head of Tehran’s Friday prayers headquarters Hojjatolelsam Masoud Moradi said he did not have any information as to who would lead this week’s prayers.

“Each week, the office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution informs the Friday Prayers leader on either Monday or Tuesday that this week it is your turn [to lead] and they also inform the prayers headquarters and we notify the media [about the decision],” Moradi told Fars News Agency.

He added that it is possible that the Leader’s office has informed Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani of the decision but is yet to notify the Friday prayers headquarters.