Free Republic

An Iranian court has sentenced the dissident academic Hashem Aghajari to five years in jail for insulting Islamic values. The Tehran history professor had been sentenced to death two years ago for blasphemy. The verdict led to major student protests in Iran. In June of this year the Iranian Supreme Court overturned the death sentence. Since Mr Aghajari has already served two years in prison, he must remain in jail for another three years. His lawyer has announced that he will appeal the sentence.

TEHRAN, Feb 14 (AFP) - Iran's Supreme Court overturned Friday the death sentence imposed on dissident academic Hashem Aghajari for blasphemy, the state news agency IRNA reported. The majority of the judges of the Supreme Court consider that the verdict was contrary to the law," said one of them, Aytatollah Seyed Mohammad Sajadi. "The verdict has therefore been quashed. The case will be returned to a court in Hamedan," the western city where Aghajari was convicted. Aghajari, a disabled veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and supporter of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, drew the anger of the country's religious establishment when...

For the older generation it must have been like traveling back in time to late 1970s. Thousands of Iranian students have protested in the streets of Tehran every day this past week or so shouting slogans like "This is our last warning to you," "Iranian students are ready for an uprising" and "Death to dictatorship." The target of those slogans this time wasn't the Shah, but rather the militant religious clerics who led those protests two decades ago. The students have even taken to tweaking the nose of those clerics by singing "Ey Iran," the nation's anthem under the Shah....

Iran's speaker of parliament, Medhi Karubi, has promised that the journalist and scientist Hashem Aghajari, who was recently sentenced to death, will be freed from jail. The speaker of parliament expressed his disgust at the verdict and emphasised that Mr Aghajari will be able to return to his family in the near future. It is believed that Mr Karubi was referring to a bill passed on Sunday morning by the Iranian parliament, giving President Mohammad Khatami the power to suspend court rulings. In Iran there is a power struggle between parliament, which has a reformist majority, and the judiciary, that...

TEHRAN, Nov 7 (AFP) - Outspoken Iranian pro-reform journalist Hashem Aghajari, who was arrested on charges of "insulting the prophet", has been sentenced to death, his lawyer said Thursday. Lawyer Saleh Nikbakh told AFP that a court in the western city of Hamedan imposed the sentence on Wednesday. Aghajari is a member of the secular leftist Organization of Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution (OMIR) and is politically close to reformist President Mohammad Khatami. He was arrested in August after saying in a speech that Muslims "should not blindly" follow religious leaders and calling for a "religious renewal" of Shiite Islam.