NAJAF, Iraq, Aug 23 - Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, summoned reporters to his home on Sunday for a rare meeting seeking to dispel rumours that the ageing grand ayatollah had fallen seriously ill. A Reuters reporter was among the two dozen or so Iraqi journalists who gathered at Sistani's compound in the southern city of Najaf for the brief, seven-minute meeting with the reclusive 78-year-old. "Recently, untrue rumours have surfaced about my health, and have caused anxiety among believers inside and outside Iraq," the white-bearded cleric, who appeared to be in good health, told journalists in the meeting. Repeated denials from Sistani's aides had failed to silence rumours which have swirled for at least a week. Reporters were barred from bringing notebooks, cameras or tape recorders into the meeting, but they were not physically searched before they were escorted in to meet the cleric. Sistani wields vast influence among the country's majority Shi'ites. He stayed mainly out of politics during Saddam Hussein's time but emerged as one of the country's most powerful men after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He now stays out of the political fray.Sistani has refused to meet Western officials and only occasionally sits down with Iraqi political leaders. The last time he met a group of reporters was in June 2006. In the meeting, Sistani chided reporters for spreading rumours. "Journalists have to check their reports and abstain from publishing news that is not true," he said. Yet he also expressed concern about attacks on journalists in Iraq, the most dangerous country in the world for the press. "I feel the pain of the assaults, murders, beatings, injuries and persecutions that journalists in Iraq suffer in their daily work," he said. More than 130 journalists have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq since 2003. (Reporting by Khaled Farhan; writing by Ahmed Rasheed and Missy Ryan; editing by Robert Hart)
Demonstrators march during a rally protesting the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad August 21, 2008. The United States and ...
