IRAN AND THE WORLD OPINION CONCERNED ABOUT AQAJARI

By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor

PARIS 9 Nov. (IPS) The harsh sentence imposed on a leading reformer of political Islam by the leader-controlled Judiciary of Iran has created a spectacular outcry both in Iran as well as in the international community, with Iranian students warning the ruling conservatives with nation-wide strikes and protest movements if they do not revise the verdict.

A court in the western city of Hamadan sentenced to death Dr. Hashem Aqajari, a well-known political activist close to the embattled President Mohammad Khatami, charging him of “sabb al nabi”, which, in the language of Qor’an, the Muslim’s holly book, means insulting the prophet Mohammad, an accusation that under the Iranian Islam-based laws, carry death penalty.

International human rights organisations like the London-based Amnesty International, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, French Socialist Party, the European Community, the Canadian and American governments expressed their “extreme concern” about the sentence and called on the Iranian authorities to revoke the verdict.

Speaking in Hamedan in June, Mr Aghajari argued that real Islam was different from "the authoritarian Islam" that is ruling Iran today.

A professor of Islamic laws, Mr. Aqajari is one of the Iranian scholars who call for a kind of Protestantism for Islam, pointing out that religion does not need guides and that people are not “apes” to follow blindly the ruling clerics.

Mr. Mehdi Khalaji, a commentator on Iranian affairs with the Persian service of the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty citing some statistics, says, “more than 80 per cent of Iranians have reached the conclusion that Islam is not the one that the Iranian conservative clerics claim to represent it and want the religion to be reformed and modernised”.

According to Mr. Saleh Nikbakht, the lawyer of Mr. Aqajari, the court has also accused his client of insulting the clerical corps and sentenced him to 74 lashes, 10 years suspension of professional activities, 10 years imprisonments and 8 years of exile in remote regions, without explaining whether the prison term and lashes would be carried out before or after the execution of the accused.

Mr Nikbakht, said yesterday he hoped the Supreme Court would overturn the death sentence on appeal an d noted that some grand ayatollahs, including Grand Ayatollah Hoseynali Montazeri, the Shi’a Muslim’s highest authority and Ayatollah Jaleddin Taheri, another high-ranking dissident cleric, did not agree with the judiciary's charges that a speech made by Mr Aqajari amounted to insulting the Prophet Mohammad.

Ayatollah Montazeri, who is currently under house arrest in the holy city of Qom for criticising the way Ayatollah Khameneh`í and his associates rule Iran said that if anybody had wanted to deal a blow to Islam and the Shi’a clergy, the "harsh and unjustified" death sentence on Mr Aqajari was the best possible way to do it.

Casting doubt on the religious validity of the sentence, he accused "a minority in the country of toying with the lives and reputations of others” and warned that "at such a sensitive time for the country, the officials in charge should change their way of dealing with people before it is too late".

Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Qabel, also a reformist cleric, said not only the verdict issued against Mr. Aqajari is not just, but it is utterly unfortunate, as it comes at a time that the Islamic Republic is under heavy international pressures.

Speaking to RFE/RL on Friday, he said not only the scholar’s speech did not contained anything signifying as apostasy, but also that his conference had been disrupted by hezbollahi troublemakers and therefore the court could not correctly judge what Mr. Aqajari had said.

Many Iranian newspapers carried a statement from the head of the Majles´Judicial and Legal Committee, Naser Qavami, who said he had read the comments attributed to Mr Aqajari and found nothing in them to justify even a prison sentence, far less death.

"The issuing of such verdicts by the judiciary has damaged the credibility of the judicial system, and the image of the Shia clerical establishment", he added.

Reflecting concern at international reaction, another reformist paper said the death sentence and the jailing of other liberal figures, was taking place at a time when even Saddam Hussein was releasing his political prisoners.

Though issuing such strange sentences is not unusual with the Iranian Judiciary, as seen by the one that had been decided in the case of Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yoosefi-Eshkevari, yet political analysts saw the sentence of Mr. Aqajari as being part of the new clampdown on intellectuals and dissidents ordered by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the egocentric leader of the Islamic Republic, following the publication of the results of an opinion poll that clearly showed the unpopularity of the ruling conservatives, most above all Mr. Khameneh'i himself.

In fact, Mr. Aqajari’s was declared condemned to death days after another court in Tehran imprisoned Mr. Abbas Abdi, another leading reformer on charges of “fabricating false surveys of Iranian people opinions for the need of American political and intelligence communities, giving him 45.000 US Dollars”.

According to the survey, demanded by the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee of the reformists-dominated Majles and conducted by three different polling firms, one of them close to the conservatives, another sponsored by the Islamic Guidance Ministry and the third belonging to Mr. Abdi, more than 74 per cent of the Iranians support normalising relations with the United States.

To another question only 1.2 per cent of the people questioned said they consider Ayatollah Khameneh'i as a popular leader.

The result of the survey, published by the pro-government news Agency IRNA, shocked the ruling conservative establishment, as it showed clearly that not only a great majority of the Iranians, mostly the young generation, do not agree with the policies decided by the leader of the regime, but also they do not approve the present theocratic system.

While Mr. Abdollah Naseri, the General Director of IRNA had been summoned to court, Mr. Behrooz Geranpayeh, the Director of the National Research and Studies Organisation was accused of espionage for un-named foreign powers and his institute has been shut down.

In his Friday sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, the Secretary of the Council of Guardians (CG) and a close associate to the leader, echoed Mr. Khameneh'i by repeating that the survey was "faked", blasted those arrested for conducting and publishing the controversial poll, adding that those who organised it had received 45 million dollars from the United States.

The conservatives-controlled press had also reacted to the polls, claiming it was “fabricated” and openly accused the lamed President Mohammad Khatami for having orchestrated it in order to see the two bills he had presented the Majles approved by the 12 Guardians.

One of the bills aims at giving the president his constitutional prerogatives to oversee the respect of the Constitution by all the powers and institutions of the Islamic Republic, including the Judiciary, a body that is still under the direct control of the leader and serves as his political and police arms.

The other, which has been already approved by the Majles, aims at curtailing the powers of the CG, particularly its self-appropriated Special Vetting Right to reject any candidate for any election, without providing any explanation.

The conservatives claims that by introducing the bills, Mr. Khatami want to give himself “dictatorial powers” and place himself above the leader.

Political analysts expects that the leader-controlled CG, which among other constitutional powers, is mandated to make sure that all laws passed by the Parliament are in strict conformity with Islamic Canons, would reject Mr.Khatami’s bills.

Mr Khatami, who has previously threatened to resign if the Council of the Guardians blocks his legislation, appears to be reconsidering.

Associates say that in a recent private meeting, he seriously advised his allies to exercise more patience, as he believed the arrests were a warning to him to withdraw his initiative.

However, the conservatives sees the hands of the Islamic Revolution’s Mojahedeen Organisation (IRMO), the strongest and best organised political force within the Second Khordad Coalition that supports the embattled President and to which both Abdi and Aqajari belongs.

Political observers say Mr. Abdi’s strong suggestions to the President, the reformist lawmakers and to the whole of the reform movement to resign and abandon the leadership in case the CG rejects the bills, has “panicked” the hard liners.

Mr. Amir Mohebbian, an editor and leading commentator of the pro-conservative newspaper “Resalat” in a recent article called on the authorities to ban the IRMO while senior hard line tenors like Mr. Habibollah Asgar Owladi, the secretary of the League of Islamic Associations, an old fundamentalist group with great influence over the conservatives accused IRMO of apostasy.

Observers in Tehran expect more harsh measures against dissidents, mostly members of the IRMO, from the Judiciary. ENDS AQAJARI CONDEMNED 91102