Stor Ayatollan Montazeri som för 10 år (1979-1989), var Khomeinis efterträdare men som utmanövrerades av Ali Khamenei och suttit i husarrest sedan 1989 har utfärdat ett religiöst påbud (Fatwa) i syftet att avlägsna Irans högsta ledare Ali Khamenei:

Befattningshavare som har förlorat religiöst och rationellt anseende och förmyndarskap i sociala frågor entledigas automatiskt från sina positioner. Deras bemyndigande inte har någon legitimitet alls. Och om de är förfarande kvar i sin position genom tvång, svikligt eller bedrägeri, måste folket uttrycka sig på deras utomäktenskaplig och brist på trovärdighet och kräva att de tas bort från dessa positioner genom dem mest effektiva och minst kostsamma metoder.

Här är översättningen av delar av hans Fatwa.

Officials who have religiously and rationally lost authority and custodianship in social affairs are automatically dismissed from their positions. Their authority has no legitimacy whatsoever. And if they remain in their position through coercion, deceit or fraud, the people must voice those officials' illegitimacy and lack of credibility and demand their removal from those positions through the most effective and least costly methods.

Obviously, this is a duty for all people. It falls upon everyone in society, the elite and the laymen alike, depending on their knowledge and abilities. No one can shed this responsibility under any pretext.

The elite of society are more aware of the religion and law, more capable and wield more influence. As such, they have a more serious mandate. Through unity, like-mindedness and establishing of parties and organizations as well as private and public meetings, they must inform others and present a solution to them.

Religion, logic and learned people around the world condemn and consider as worthless a government based on coercion, oppression and aggression against the rights of other people; A government which has usurped and manipulated the people's votes, killed, arrested, detained and applied medieval and Stalinist tortures on them; A government that represses, censors the newspapers, disrupts communication and imprisons the elite in society on bogus charges and forces them to make false confessions, especially in prison.

According to credible accounts from the family of the Prophet and his direct descendents, extracting confessions in prison has absolutely no religious and legal legitimacy and cannot be the basis for issuing a sentence. 

Iran's valiant people are fully aware of the reality of these confessions which conjure up recorded examples in fascist and communist regimes. It is common knowledge that such confessions and fabricated television interviews have been obtained through force, torture and threats in order to conceal cases of oppression and injustice.

Those ordering, perpetrating and assisting in such confessions and false interviews are sinners and offenders. From a religious and legal standpoint, they deserve punishment.

The Shah heard the sound of the Iranian people's revolution only when it was too late. It is hoped that officials in charge not allow the situation to get to that point and show flexibility toward the demands of their own citizens as soon as possible. The sooner we can exercise damage control the better.