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SV INTERIOR PAN TO Ayatollah Khomeini taking seat in mosque Teheran, ZOOM OUT TO GV Khomeini with audience.
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GV ZOOM INTO SCU Ayatollah Khomeini addressing crowd in mosque, in Farci speech.
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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Iran's ageing revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, delivered his third public speech in two days on Wednesday (27 August), dispelling any doubts about his present state of health. The eighty-year-old leader spoke for half an hour, virtually without pause, to some 2000 people in a half-built mosque next to his north Teheran home.

SYNOPSIS: The Ayatollah, looking fit for his age, walked onto a platform, erect and unaided, from a doorway connecting the mosque to his house.

Speculation on his condition gained momentum last week when the state radio and a leading Mullah appealed to the people to restrict their visits to the Ayatollah so as not to overtax his health.

The revolutionary leader's health is a critical issue for Iran.

Although the Ayatollah has repeatedly tried to remain above politics, it is universally recognised that his presence holds the country together. All factions wresting for power are pledged to follow his word, and even the dominant Islamic Republican Party (IRP) depends on his support.

Ayatollah Khomeini devoted his speech on Wednesday to an attack on the Iranian communications media under the regime of the late Shah. News agency reports from Iran say that there is now hardly any music on the radio. And the television channels are virtually give Gover to religious and political exhortations, except for the occasional western movie, not considered offensive to Islam.

Support for modern Western values is considered almost counter-revolutionary.

He told the crowd, packed into the mosque, that if the press and mass media are reformed, then Iranian society will be reformed.

The Ayatollah's speech was well received by the surging crowd. They chanted Allah-O-Akbar (god is great) and Khomeini Rahbar (Khomeini the leader).