SOURCES and NOTES - Narration - Pt.3 - Officials

Here’s the head of the government organization that organized our tour in Iran

He was the Director of the Center for Interreligious Dialogue, which was part of the Organization of Islamic Culture and Relations. You may remember him from the Question on Sunnis in Iran in Part 2.

Protect the young people from post-modernism with religious media – as though Iranian TV wasn’t force-feeding all the religious programming they could already.

Iranian TV (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting http://www.irib.ir/English/) is dominated by conservatives. SOURCE: Soul of Iran by Afshin Molavi, Norton, 2005, (for example Molavi credits their favorable coverage with of Ahmadinejad with helping him beat Rafsanjani in the 2005 presidential race)
Since the advent of satellite TV it has had to compete with popular commercial television and is reputed to be more entertaining than it was during Khomeini's time.


Dr. Mahdi Mostafavi, was the head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation of Iran.
... who’s been described in the Western press as a member of President Ahmadinejad’s inner circle
SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/2061633/Pope-avoids-Iran


MY QUESTION ON SHARIAH INNOVATION

The fatwa declared that the interests of Islamic Republic have precedence over "secondary ordinances" of Islam.

An example of critics maintaining the fatwa meant Khomeini's Islamic state was an ideological failure:
SOURCE: http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html#Laws_in_Islam

The fatwa was highlighted by the regime's critics because the raison d'etre for the overthrow of the Shah, according to Khomeini, was the Shah's failure to strictly adhere to the laws of Islam.
Khomeini had proclaimed before the revolution that
"No one has the right to legislate and no law may be executed except the law of God ... The law of Islam, divine command, has absolute authority over all individuals AND the Islamic government."

SOURCE: Khomeini in exile January-February 1970, Islamic Government by Ayatollah Khomenei, 1970 p.55 of Islam and Revolution : Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini

Some details on the labor law that provoked the fatwa and the reasoning behind the fatwa by a blogger unsympatheic to Khomeini:
http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html#footnote_72a

A interpretation of the issue by an academic sympathetic to the regime:
http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=5978
(scroll down to: iv) Al-Hukm al-Awaly and al-Hukm al-Sanavy )