May 17, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 4, 1423

TEHRAN, May 16: A leading Iranian religious official warned that Iran was on the verge of a social explosion because of discontent among the population, the state news agency IRNA reported on Thursday.

Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, conservative prayer leader in the holy city of Qom, said, “the survival of the regime depends on the actions of those at various levels of power,” according to IRNA.

“The people are very discontented, and they are right to be so, and I swear to you that society is on the brink of explosion,” added Amini, who is vice-chairman of the assembly of experts, a body of clerics tasked with appointing or dismissing Iran’s supreme leader.

“If this discontent increases, as is the case, society and the regime will be threatened.”

Amini said that Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution had occurred “because the people were discontented with the injustice and discrimination of the imperial regime.”

No regime “can maintain itself in power by force,” he warned.

The conservative cleric’s alarm bells followed a similar statement by reformist President Mohammad Khatami earlier this month.

“Our society is on the threshold of disorder,” Khatami told a meeting of teachers in Tehran on May 5, when he indicated he could step down.

“Iran did not vote for me but voted for justice and freedom in the framework of the constitution”, he said. “We will succeed only if we introduce a religious government in which religion is not hampering freedom and dignity”.

A close associate of Khatami said on Thursday that Khatami’s threat to quit was serious, IRNA reported.—AFP