Posted on 11/17/2002 3:19:52 AM PST by Int
Daily: Leader orders appeals court to reconsider Aghajari's case
Tehran, Nov 17, IRNA -- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei ordered Hamedan Appeals Court on Saturday night to survey the case of university professor, Dr. Hashem Aghajari closer, keeping in mind "the sanctity of (innocent) human blood", an Iranian daily reported in its Sunday edition.
Persian language "Jomhouri Eslami" daily wrote that following receiving a letter signed by "hundreds of university professors," requesting the leader to tackle out a solution to the problem raised in the country due to the issuance of a death sentence against Dr. Aghajari, "his eminence ordered the appeals court to reconsider the case a lot more carefully, keeping in mind the sanctity of human blood."
The daily's reporter has predicted that the preliminary court's "death sentence" would be annulled "keeping in mind the text of the leader's order, written on the margin of the university professors' letter.
A court in the western city of Hamedan on November 6 sentenced Dr. Aghajari to death for allegedly blaspheming Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It further condemned him to an eight-year imprisonment in desert cities as well as 74 flogs and banned him from teaching for 10 years.
The sentence is related to Aghajari's speech in August this year after he called for religious restructuring and criticized the Islamic principle of emulating (Taqlid) religious leaders in Shia-dominated Iran.
The verdict has triggered peaceful protests of Iranian students over recent days, while Aghajari has called for calm.
His wife Zahra Behnoudi said on Thursday that the academic had asked the students to "make their demands in the framework of the law" and refrain from instigating riots.
"A group of people are seeking to inflame student movements. Thus, the students must follow up their demands in calm and with awareness and do not let their movements be exploited," she further cited Aghajari as saying.
President Mohammad Khatami has defended Aghajari and denounced the verdict as "improper". The Judiciary has however lashed out at the critics of the sentence.
"It is surprising that those who boast of piety consider blatant insult to the religion and the infallible household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and their divine position as well as derision of brilliant Islamic principles as freedom of thought," it said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Is it possible to defend a person who claims to be a Muslim, but has given himself up to satans by denying the basics of the religion, including the principle of emulating top clerics?," it added.
Head of the other branch of the system, Parliament Speaker Mehdi arroubi, too, had called the verdict "a big shame for the whole system." NA/AR End
// BBC:
Iran reviews liberal's death sentence
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered a review of the death sentence passed on liberal academic Hashem Aghajari.
Public protests erupted last week over the sentence, imposed by judges who found Mr Aghajari guilty of renouncing Islam.
Mr Aghajari had said in a speech that each generation should re-interpret aspects of Islam rather than blindly follow religious leaders.
Reformists see his prosecution as the latest in a long line of moves against liberal figures by the hard-line judiciary.
The BBC's Jim Muir reports that it was unthinkable in Iran that the death sentence on Mr Aghajari would actually be carried out.
He is a war veteran who lost a leg in the 1980-88 war with Iraq and belongs to a left-wing reformist political group, the Islamic Revolutionary Mujahidin Organisation.
His sentence has been criticised by Iran's reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, who has no power over the judiciary.
Thousands of students in Tehran have held demonstrations in support of Mr Aghajari, who lectures in history.
The protests were largely peaceful and confined to university campuses.
On Friday, in counter-protests, about 1,000 people called for his execution, many of them dubbing him "Iran's Salman Rushdie".
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier issued a veiled warning that he might have to call on the "the forces of the people" if the country's governing structures could not handle major problems.
You mean like those Israeli children whose murders you financed?
I believe the sentence never specified if he was to be imprisoned, flogged and banned before being executed or after!
When you hear of Carter's phoney Nobel Piece Prize, just think of the murdering Islamofascist thugs who have ruled Iran since Carter allowed it.
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei is part of the legacy of Carter!
Bump.
I know it must sounde slightly less ridiculous in Farsi, but c'mon, this is just too much.
The Islamic students at my university published a fascinating insert to our daily school newspaper for "Islamic Awareness Week", and that is when I first became aware of this comical "PBUH" thing (of course, the Islamic students failed to recognize that Islam awareness week had already happened for most of us right around 9/11). I suppose dialectical marxism still has the edge for overall absurdity in use of language, but these clowns make Dr. Evil seem a serious villain...
I know it must sounde slightly less ridiculous in Farsi, but c'mon, this is just too much.
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