Iran's Worst Clerics

HOJJATOL-ISLAM GHOLAM-HOSSEIN MOHSENI-EJEI

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Position: Minister of intelligence and security

Worldview: A member of the infamous Ministry Of Intelligence and Security since its creation, Mohseni-Ejei is dedicated to protecting the Islamic Republic from enemies foreign and domestic. He has on numerous occasions accused the United States and Israel of spying inside Iran and has routinely blames domestic unrest on foreign involvement. Even after Iranian courts cleared U.S. journalist Roxanna Saberi of any wrongdoing, Mohseni-Ejei publicly maintained that she was a spy.

Mohseni-Ejei has a reputation, like Ahmadinejad, who appointed him to his current post, for being tough on corruption and brought prosecutions against a number of government officials in his former post as prosecutor general. However, reformists point out that he has almost never prosecuted clerics suspected of corruption, earning him a reputation as an enforcer for the ayatollahs. (Mohseni-Ejei is not an ayatollah himself but a hojjatol-Islam, a middle-ranking cleric.)

Possible election role: Since Iran’s election crisis began, Mohseni-Ejei has followed his usual habit of blaming the unrest on international actors. His ministry has carried out numerous arrests of “provocation agents” and he has warned that if demonstrators disturb the peace, they will “not only be arrested… their identities will be made public.”

Like Dorri-Najafabadi, Mohseni-Ejei is one of the most influential clerics in Iran’s security establishment, but unlike him, “he remains quite active politically,” according to Nafisi. He can be expected to lobby the state to resist reform and quash dissent.

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