PRO-AQAJARI PROTEST MOVEMENT TO GET NATION-WIDE

TEHRAN 11 Nov. (IPS)

As the popular protests, led by students, against the death sentence imposed on Mr. Hashem Aqajari entered its third successive day, students warned the authorities that they would wage nation-wide demonstrations against the regime is the scholar is not freed immediately.

At a tribune organised Monday morning in the “Tarbiyyat Moddaress” University, where Mr. Aqajari is a professor of history, speakers expressed anger at what on of them characterised as “setam-mollahi”, a twist in the “setam-shahi” slogan coined by the anti-Shah demonstrators of 1979 to design abuses and oppressions from Monarchy.

Students also denounced the “cancer-like” powers of the Judiciary power, which is directly controlled by the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’I and serve as his police and political arm.

As the protest movement gets ampler, and the demonstrations are now reaching other cities in Iran, informed sources said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenehí has called an emergency meeting with some of his close aides, including both the present and former presidents, to review the situation before it gets out of control.

Hundreds of Iranian students had protested Sunday, outraged at a death sentence for “sab al nabi”, an Arabic word in the Qor’an meaning insulting the prophet Mohammad, imposed on Mr. Aqajari three months ago by a court in the western city of Hamadan.

Judges, ordered by the Judiciary, insist that in a conference in this city, Mr. Aqajari has said people are not “ape” to need clerical guides and has called to free the religion from the oppression of the prophets.

But leading ayatollahs, including Grand Ayatollah Hoseynali Montazeri, the 200 millions Shi’a Muslims world-wide highest source of imitation, who have seen the full text of the accused speech say there is nothing in it to justify imprisonment, leave alone a death sentence.

Eyewitnesses at the Sunday protests, the biggest and most vocal demonstrations since the 1999 protest movement that shook the Islamic Republic to the bones, said some of the speakers spoke against the leaders of the regime, including both the leader and his President, Mohammad Khatami.

The protests also coincided with demands from the reformists lawmakers who controls the Majles for the release of Mr. Aqajari, in the one hand and the resignation of Mr. Hoseyn Loqmanian, the MM (Member of the Majles) from Hamadan and Mr. Mohammad Reza Ali Hoseyni, from Nahavand, protesting the verdict.

A reformist MM, Mr. Loqmanian is the first ever Iranian lawmaker who, on order of the Judiciary, had been jailed for over a week.

Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi, the Speaker of the Majles also called the verdict "political" and observed that many clerics disagreed with it.

"As a cleric, who is also talking on behalf of a lot of senior clerics, I express my hatred toward this shameful and disgusting sentence", he said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.

However, analysts are not unanimous on the reasons behind Mr. Aqajari´s death sentence.

Some say it is a “plot” hatched by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Chairman of the Assembly for Discerning the Interests of the State (ADIS), or, in short, the Expediency Council, to overshadow the importance of the bills presented the Majles to curtail the powers of the Council of Guardians, a bill that has been already approved by the reformist-controlled Parliament.

Others speculate that the verdict was imposed on Mr. Aqajari to force Mr. Khatami and his few followers get out of the leadership in order to finish with the present “double headed” dragon system, where the non-elected but powerful orthodox clerics have all the powers against the elected personalities and institutions.

In fact, the verdict was delivered days after another court in Tehran had placed behind bars a veteran reformist in Mr. Abbas Abdi, a former leader of the anti-American students in 1979 turned staunch supporter of resuming relations with Washington.

He is accused of having received money from the Americans to “fabricate” wrong opinion polls showing the majority of Iranians do not approve of the ruling clerics’ policies.

Analysts say Mr. Abdi’s “greatest sin” is his suggestions to both the President and the reformists to quit the leadership, in case the Council of Guardians blocks the controversial bills.

“The recent arrest of a number of reformists, the death sentence against Aqajari and the closure of several polling institutes linked to Khatami's government shows the conservatives are in no mood to compromise”, one observer noted.

The pro-Aqajari demonstrations had started Saturday night at Tehran University and lasted until Sunday, during which hundreds of students chanted "Political prisoners should be released" and "Freedom of thought forever".

Around 500 students crammed into an auditorium to hear speaker after speaker condemn the court verdict and sharply criticize the country's clerical and political leaders.

Witnesses said the speeches were bolder than any heard from the student body for several years.

Khatami did not escape criticism at Sunday's rally. One speaker at the student rally said he "only smiles beautifully and speaks nice words".

Iranians label Khatami as “Farah” - the former Iranian Empress for the soothing role she would play under the Monarchy.

Conservative commentators accused reformists of exploiting the Aqajari case in an effort to mask internal divisions.

"Aqajari's death sentence is a gift for them and they consider it a lifeline to get out of their bad situation and to create some hue and cry," wrote Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, the leader-appointed Editor of the hard-line “Kayhan” newspaper and a specialist of interrogating political and intellectual dissidents. ENDS QAJARI PROTESTS 111102