Has Tehran lost the weapon of fear?

Critics chip away at the regime's legitimacy, as rebukes and outright ridicule of the Guardian Council's Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati mount over last year's election.

It is a sign that the Iranian regime's use of fear to silence domestic critics may be weakening when one of its most influential hard-line clerics is publicly ridiculed. The moment came in last July when Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati alleged recently that the leaders of the opposition green movement were paid US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) by the United States to foment unrest in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election last year.

"Even a boiled chicken will laugh at his words," scoffed Zahra Rehnavard on August 1. She is the wife of the opposition leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the man whom millions of Iranians believe was the real winner of the vote that the opposition says was rigged. Making an enemy of Ayatollah Jannati is far from risk-free. The diminutive, white-bearded octogenarian is the long-serving head of one of Iran's most powerful institutions, the Guardian Council, a constitutional and electoral watchdog that screens candidates for national elections.

He is a vocal supporter of Mr Ahmadinejad and is close to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ayatollah Jannati is also a regular leader of Friday prayers at Tehran University, where he calls for the execution of pro-democracy protesters. "When it comes to suppressing the enemy, divine compassion and leniency have no meaning," he said in a January sermon. There have been other indications recently that the use of fear is losing its potency.

In a written statement to a Revolutionary Court last month, a prominent reformist journalist said he had suffered "severe torture" after he was detained during the mass arrests that followed last summer's presidential election. Issa Saharkhiz, 57, who has denied charges against him such as making propaganda against the regime, called on Ayatollah Khamenei to meet his obligations under Iran's constitution. This, he wrote, outlaws torture, stipulates that preliminary trials should be conducted swiftly and rules that confessions made under duress are invalid.

Meanwhile, former Iranian vice president and cleric Mohammad Ali Abtahi acknowledged publicly for the first time this month that he and others who appeared in the dock at a mass trial last year had rehearsed their supposed "confessions". "We had practiced the day before," he wrote on his Facebook page. His remark reinforced what opposition leaders and human-rights activists have long maintained: that reformist politicians, journalists, students and others detained after last year's presidential election had made false confessions under duress - and that the mass trials were a "farce".

Mr Abtahi was sentenced to a six-year jail term for "acting against national security and propaganda activity" but was released on bail in November pending appeal. His supporters have commended him for speaking out now, but worry that his candour could land him in more trouble. As embarrassing for the regime are the relentless opposition attacks on Ayatollah Jannati, which are chipping away at the regime's legitimacy.

The cleric alleged in late July that he had documents proving the US had used "Saudi individuals" to pay the "leaders of sedition" - a term coined by hardliners to describe opposition leaders $1bn to stoke post-election turmoil. He claimed they were promised a further $50bn if they managed to "overthrow the Islamic establishment". Lashing out in response, Mr Mousavi, Mehdi Karrubi and Mohammad Khatami accused Ayatollah Jannati of lying, defamation, helping to engineer Mr Ahmadinejad's "stolen" election and of complicity in the "brutal" repression of those who peacefully opposed it.

"These attacks on Jannati are an implicit challenge to the authority of Iran's supreme leader, who reinstated him last month in his Guardian Council post," said Scott Lucas, an Iran specialist at Birmingham University in England. "The regime has long used the fear factor of foreign intervention to suppress the opposition. But Jannati's accusations that the green's leaders were involved in a US-Saudi plot have backfired by exposing the highly suspect nature of such claims," Mr Lucas added in a telephone interview.

By publicly taking on the Guardian Council chief, Mr Mousavi and his colleagues are also sending a morale-boosting signal to their dispirited followers: the reformist opposition remains a potent if latent force despite harsh suppression by the regime. The green movement's leaders have dropped the tactic of mass street demonstrations because the regime has proven its ability to forcefully crush them.

The most strident criticism of Ayatollah Jannati has come from Mr Karrubi, a cleric and former parliamentary speaker who, like Mr Mousavi, ran against Mr Ahmadinejad in last year's election. In a recent statement on his website, Mr Karrubi branded Ayatollah Jannati "an accomplice of those who stole people's votes" and challenged him to produce any evidence of alleged opposition perfidy. Otherwise, "I will unveil your growing lies and scandals publicly and everywhere and by any means possible," Mr Karrubi said.

Last week he and Mr Mousavi penned a letter to Iran's senior-most clerics, urging them to rein in Ayatollah Jannati for the "sake of saving the integrity of Islam" and the reputation of Iran's clergy. The furore, however, has not dissuaded other hardliners from repeating the ayatollah's inflammatory claims. Iran's intelligence minister, Haydar Moslehi, alleged on Monday that the "global arrogance" has allotted $17bn for the "seditious" movement of 2009, with a large slice slotted for a "soft war" in the Islamic republic.

"Global arrogance" is the hardliners' term for the US and its allies. Iranian leaders repeatedly have accused the US and Britain of masterminding last year's post-election unrest in a bid to topple the regime. There was no immediate response to Mr Moslehi's accusations from opposition leaders. @Email:[e-mail]