Hojjatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi is an interim Friday Prayer Leader for Tehran

Tehran

Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

. The Friday prayer leader gives the khutbah or sermon shortly after noon on Friday, the traditional time of gathering for the Muslim community. In Tehran the prayer leader gives the khutbah at the University of Tehran

University of Tehran

The University of Tehran , also known as Tehran University and UT, is Iran's oldest university. Located in Tehran, the university is among the most prestigious in the country, and is consistently selected as the first choice of many applicants in the annual nationwide entrance exam for top Iranian...

.

A rival of President Ahmadinejad, Seddiqi was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei

Ali Khamenei

Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i is the Supreme Leader of Iran and the figurative head of the Muslim conservative establishment in Iran and Twelver Shi'a marja...

 in August 2009. The New York Times characterized the appointment as part of an effort to "reinforce [Khamenei's] authority by cultivating divisions between factions" following the controversial June presidential election

Iranian presidential election, 2009

Iran's tenth presidential election was held on 12 June 2009, with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running against three challengers. The next morning the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news agency, announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election...

.

Among the targets of criticism in Seddiqi's khutbahs have been "certain regional countries for `supporting` the leader of the Jundallah

Jundallah

Jundallah, or Jondollah , also known as People's Resistance Movement of Iran , is an organization based in Balochistan that claims to be fighting for the rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran. It was founded by Abdolmalek Rigi who was captured and executed in Iran in 2010...

 terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi

Abdolmalek Rigi

Abdolmajid Rigi or Abdolmalek Rigi was the leader of Jundallah, an Islamist Sunni militant organization based in the Sistan and Baluchestan Province of southeast Iran, until his capture and execution in 2010 by the Iranian government.-Biography:Born in 1983, Abdolmalek Rigi is from the Regi tribe...

", the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 for showing his “ugly face” by preparing a new slate of sanctions against Iran, and women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously, which Seddiqi claims causes

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," is a logical fallacy that states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one." It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause,...

 earthquakes to occur. In response to the latter statement, hundreds of thousands of women around the world, organized through social-networking sites such as Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 and Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

, declared April 26, 2010, to be "Boobquake

Boobquake

Boobquake, which took place on April 26, 2010, was devised by Jennifer McCreight, then a senior in the Purdue University College of Science, in response to news reports that Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi had blamed women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes...

day", in which they all agreed to wear immodest clothing on the same day.