Free Republic

LONDON - If there is one man who can testify to the dangers of challenging Iran's clerical rulers, it is Hashem Aghajari -- the dissident who dared to say Muslims were not "monkeys" and nearly paid the ultimate price. "I had been in prison for four months when the intelligence men came to take me to the judge. Then he read the verdict," Aghajari recounted. His crime was a speech to students, saying do not "blindly follow" religious leaders like monkeys. For regime hardliners it was blasphemous. The court delivered the sentence: Death by hanging. The assistant judge even took...

TEHRAN, Iran -- A university professor has decided not to appeal a reinstated death sentence, effectively challenging Iran's hard-line judges to execute him for criticizing clerical rule, his lawyer said Tuesday. The original sentence handed down to Hashem Aghajari in 2002 provoked massive student demonstrations and street battles with hard-line vigilantes. The uproar highlighted the power struggle between reformists and conservatives in Iran. The Supreme Court overturned the death penalty last year. But the original court in the western province of Hamedan province has reinstated it, a provincial judicial official disclosed Monday. "Professor Aghajari told me Monday evening that his...

Iranian Judiciary Allows Seven Jailed Dissidents to go on Leave May 02, 2004 Agence France Presse afp.com TEHRAN -- Iranian hardline judiciary authorities in a rare move have allowed seven prominent dissidents jailed for speaking out against the regime and students jailed during unrest in 1999 to go on leave, the Iranian daily Shargh reported on Sunday. According to the paper, Akbar Ganji, who was jailed in 2000 after he alleged top regime officials were behind a spate of grisly serial murders of dissidents, was given seven days of leave starting Saturday. Ahmad Batebi, Nasser Zarafshan and Akbar Mohammadi were...

Last month some 450 Iranian intellectuals and dissidents sent a petition to the Nobel Committee in support of Hashem Aghajari, a jailed dissident Iranian intellectual as a nominee for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. We support this nomination and urge the Committee to seriously consider the implications of such an award as a token of support for the heroic struggle of the Iranian students and intellectual against the oppressive regime of the Mullahs in Iran. As an intellectual and a university professor, Aghajari was sentenced to death in November 2002 for blasphemy. His statements and utterances in regard to varying...

Summary of Iran Stories in Today's Broadcasts Judiciary Arrests Students and Political Activists •After the New Year holidays, the wave of summons, arrests and convictions of student and political activists continued. The Hamedan Islamic revolutionary court sentenced Hamedan University's physics student Mohammad Majdzadeh-Qaemi to three years in jail for his role in last June's pro-democracy demonstrations. The Urumieh revolutionary court summoned Hadi Soudbar, member of the central council of Urumieh university's Islamic student council. Next week, the Tabriz Islamic revolutionary court will try independent journalist Ensafali Hedayat, who was arrested three months ago, a day after he returned from Berlin...

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...