leading Islamic jurist (faqih, an expert in sharia) to rule over the people and nation. He (males only) would provide political "guardianship". In Iran the post of Supreme Leader was established to fulfill this role. Though Khomeini's massive popularity paved the way for this system of government, seven of the eight leading Shi'i jurists at the time did not accept "the status the vali-e faqih was accorded in the 1979 Iranian constitution. (The eighth jurist was Khomeini.) Scholar Mirjam Künkler sees a connection between this lack of clerical support for the theological basis of the Supreme Leader and the special powers (direct control by the Supreme Leader, being outside of the judiciary system of the Islamic Republic and the Constitution of Iran, trials that are not open to the public and do not allow the accused to choose their own defense counsel, and whose verdict cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court of Iran, etc.), of a court of law devoted just to religious clerics. If the reason for being of the Guardian ruler is based on the principle of velāyat-e faqih, and dissident cleric theologians are exactly the people who could "prove the extent to which the velāyat-e faqih is inconsistent with Shiʿi traditions and the extent to which it is a theological novelty whose primary function is to justify the exercise of authoritarian rule"; then Selected list of prisoners Among at least somewhat prominent Clerics who have been "dealt with" in the Islamic Republic: Abdollah Nouri (On 27 November 1999, he was convicted by the SSC of insulting Ayatollah Khomeini, publishing anti-religious materials, disturbing public opinion, insulting officials, advocating links with the United States and sentenced to five years in prison—the most senior Islamic politician to be sentenced to prison since the Revolution; Ahmad Azari Qomi (arrested in 1997 after criticizing Supreme Leader Khamenei. was forcibly expelled from clerical institutes in Qom and when his term in the Guardian Council ended, his renewed candidacy in 1998 was rejected by the Guardian Council); Hussein-Ali Montazeri (was kept in confinement from 1997 to 2003 after criticizing the authority of Khamenei); Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (read out a show confession on television, kept under house arrest from approximately 1982 to his death in 1986); Yousef Saanei (offices in Qom were attacked by Basij paramilitary in December 2009—staff beaten and offices destroyed; In January 2010, he was declared by the Qom Theological Lecturers