Iran's Assembly of Experts set for Tuesday

The Assembly of Experts, the Iranian governing body authorized to examine the Supreme Leader’s actions, will assemble on Tuesday in Tehran. The three day assembly will commence with a speech by Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chair of the assembly.

Ahmad Khatami, member of the assembly, has announced that the assembly’s agenda carries nothing out of the ordinary. According to Fars news agency, Prosecutor-general Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei and chief of National Security Council Saeed Jalili will make their presentations concerning the country’s internal affairs and Iran’s nuclear dossier respectively.

The Assembly of Experts is comprised of expert clerics elected by people to eight-year terms. This session of the assembly has drawn much attention since various groups and parties as well as Shiite clerics have called for the assembly to re-examine the suitability of the Supreme Leader in view of his actions in the crisis following the June presidential elections in Iran.

While the Supreme Leader refused to allow for a review of the ballot despite widespread allegations of fraud in the vote count, he went on to endorse violent confrontation with protesters which resulted in killing, arrest and, by numerous reports, torture of detainees.

The crisis has created a deepening rift between moderate and conservative camps of the government. In his Sunday sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei tried to somewhat bridge that rift between himself and the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani by denying the validity of several allegations that have been made against him and his family in the recent events.