Quick Facts
Biography
Yasubedin Rastegar Jooybari (Persian:يعسوب الدين رستگار جويباري) (born 1940) is an Iranian Twelver Shi'a Marja'.
He has studied in seminaries of Qom, Iran under Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, Mohammad-Reza Golpaygani and Mirza Hashem Amoli.
He has repeatedly been arrested for his opposition against the current Iranian government, in particular Supreme Leader Khamenei. Khamenei's elevation to supreme leader was challenged by him.
Background
Ayatollah Yasub al-Din Rastgari, accused of criticizing government policies, has been arrested and detained several times. During his arrest in late February 1996, he was held in incommunicado detention, reportedly mainly in Tawhid and Evin Prisons in Tehran until July 1996. In August 1996, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for having held a mourning ceremony for the late Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari. He was sentenced by the Special Clerical Court after a summary trial on vaguely worded charges, in which he had no access to a lawyer.
Ayatollah Rastgari was released from prison in December 1996, but immediately afterwards was placed under house arrest in Qom. Rastgari was again arrested on April 27, 2004 and sentenced by the Special Clerical Court to four years in prison for “insulting Islam” and “causing schism” through his critical book on Sunni-Shia relations, The Reality of Religious Unity. He has reportedly been tortured while in detention and is held incommunicado without access to his family.
His two sons were arrested with him at the time.After publishing Rastgari's book "The Reality of Religious Unity," the book's publisher was shut down.