E/CN.4/1993/62 page 61 It has been reported recently that the authorities have decided to select themselves and impose on the Shia religious community a successor to the Grand Ayatollah as the Supreme Religious Authority of the Shia Muslims. The person who would nominally hold this post in Najaf would inherit the legal authority over Shia affairs and assets previously held by the late Grand Ayatollah as-Sayyid Abul Qasim Al-Khoei. It has also been reported that the late Ayatollah’s son, Sayed Mohammed Taki Al-Khoei, was detained in Najaf on 23 September 1992 for a number of hours for refusing to publicly endorse the candidate selected by the authorities to replace his father. According to the sources, an estimated 105 relatives, staff, senior clerics and religious students associated with the Grand Ayatollah who were arrested in March 1991, including his son Ibrahim, continue to be detained and their fate has not been elucidated to date. In addition, it has been reported that the authorities have made the renewal of visas of non-Iraqi theological students and teachers in Najaf dependent on their endorsement of the governmental candidate for the succession of the late Grand Ayatollah. The more than 200 Afghan, Pakistani, Indian, Iranian and other non-Iraqi Arab religious scholars concerned by this measure, who have spent most of their lives in Iraq, risk expulsion from the country without their families and belongings. The attention of the Special Rapporteur has also been drawn to the situation of approximately 1,300 Shia prisoners who are reportedly detained in the Closed Section of Abu Ghraib prison because of their religion. The Special Rapporteur is also concerned about the situation of the Shia Marsh Arabs from southern Iraq who have recently been victims of indiscriminate military operations involving bombing and strafing operations by fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter gunships, attacks with napalm and defoliants as well as of engineering programmes aimed at draining the marshes. Five bombing raids on Shattaniya which caused many casualties and damage were reported at the beginning of August 1992." 42. On 10 December 1992, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations at Geneva transmitted the following information to the Special Rapporteur with regard to the above-mentioned allegation: With regard to the allegations referred to at the beginning of the note, concerning the continued subjection of the Shi’a in Iraq to persecution and destruction of their religious and cultural heritage, the competent Iraqi authorities have already replied to an earlier note from the Special Rapporteur in the Mission’s note 1359 of 31 July 1991. With regard to the allegations concerning desecration and destruction of the holy places in the cities of Karbala and Najaf and the destruction of the Wadi al-Salam cemetery so that a rapid-transit highway could be constructed through it, similar allegations transmitted to us by the same Special Rapporteur have already been answered in our note 20/A/10/278 of 19 January 1992. On the subject of the closure of the College of Jurisprudence in the governorate of Najaf and the transfer of its students to the Shari’a College at Baghdad, we wish to make it clear that the educational institution in question suffered severe damage at the hands of subversive elements