It all began with petitions signed by "the revolutionary people" of Karaj, a city west of the capital Tehran, where parliament speaker Ali Larijani was scheduled to deliver a speech on the upcoming 40th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution Feb. 11. According to ultra-conservative outlet Raja News, the petitions were an expression of anger backed by the city's Friday prayer leader Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini Hamedani, who declared it a "legitimate" protest.
The hard-line cleric openly demanded that the speech be canceled. "The ceremony is meant to commemorate the revolution. The speaker of that ceremony must be a revolutionary, too," Hamedani's website quoted him as saying.
