Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has died in his sleep, aged 87, in the holy city of Qom, Iran. His death has already sparked unrest in Tehran University, and the Iranian authorities are preparing for more protests during his funeral Monday 21 December.

Montazeri moved from being the designated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution against the Shah, to a fierce critic of the regime’s abuses of human rights. He critized the execution of up to 30,000 muhajedin opponents in the aftermath of the country’s war with Iraq in the 1980s. He was also opposed to Khomeini’s fatwa against the British author, Salman Rushdie.

Montazeri was placed under house arrest for five and a half years in 1997 for his open opposition to Ali Khameini, elected Supreme Leader after the death of Khomeini.

Although frequently called a reformist, Montazeri was an early and committed member of the opposition that toppled  the Shah in 1979. It was his unsurpassed standing as a Shia cleric that gave him the moral authority to question Iran’s political leadership, including the outcome of Iran’s recent presidential election in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Links to other sites: BBC, The Telegraph, Times Obituaries

Update 22:55 The protests by thousands in Iran over disputed election results continued during the weekend despite a call Friday by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, to end them. The Iranian government said Sunday that 10 more people had died, bringing the death toll to 19, and dozens more were injured, but journalists, including foreign media, are “are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran” reports Reuters. Amnesty International says that numbers are “perilously hard” to verify.

Iran has complained of Western interference in its internal affairs.

The BBC’s resident correspondent has been asked to leave, a Dubai TV station office remains closed and 23 local journalists and bloggers have reportedly been detained. The streets of Teheran were reportedly quiet Sunday, but there were reports of gunfire in northern suburbs, home to many followers of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who has called for more protests. Al Jazeera, BBC, The Globe & Mail, NPR, Xinhua