Aghajari, defiant dissident who faced the hangman

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 pleasure in telling Aghajari that "I'll put the rope around your neck myself". One cleric even labelled him "worse than Salman Rushdie. But what Aghajari could also count on was widespread revulsion that a man can still face execution for speaking out. "I knew that the world had changed and would not be indifferent," he said.

The first out were the students of Tehran University, determined to show they would stop the state from killing their popular history professor. Clashes threatened to spiral into all-out rioting. Eventually, the supreme leader himself was forced to intervene by ordering a new trial. The hardline judiciary held a re-trial, and reduced the charges to "insulting religious sanctities", "propagating against the regime" and "spreading false information to disturb the public mind". With Aghajari also cited as a possible Nobel Peace Prize winner, the death penalty was commuted to five years in jail, and Aghajari was freed on bail in July 2004. Occasionally puffing on his pipe, Aghajari mulled the June 17 presidential election."People have understood that reforms are not possible within the current system," he said. "I'm not sure if I'll be voting."

This shows the insular nature of the ruling mullahs and their reactionary ruling class. I wonder if the debate over Iran's nukes doesn't play right into the mullahs need to maintain a them-or-us national paranoia in order to keep control. This kind of slap against dissidence is probably not uncommon in a growingly restive middle class.

."People have understood that reforms are not possible within the current system," he said. "I'm not sure if I'll be voting."

The Iranians allow convicted felons to vote?

2 posted on 06/04/2005 1:37:01 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Sane, and have the papers to prove it!)

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