The Guardian Council has rejected Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the late Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Khomeini, as a candidate for membership in the Assembly of Experts.
Hassan Khomeini did not sit for a jurisprudence exam, which the council announced for the first time as a requirement for those seeking to run for membership of the Assembly of Experts.
The Guardian Council has reportedly disqualified many reformist figures but it did approve Hassan Rohani and Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, both current members of the assembly.
Of 810 potential candidates, the council has only approved 166. Hassan Khomeini has been widely regarded as a reformist figure and a supporter of opposition leaders MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011 for their allegations of vote fraud after the 2009 presidential election.
The council also rejected all female candidates who had registered to run in the Assembly of Experts election.
