AN INSANE KHAMENEH'I RADY FOR ANY FOOL HARDY DECISION
TEHRAN, 14 Nov. (IPS) With President Mohammad Khatami breaking his silence on the controversy over the death sentence imposed on Dr. Hashem Aqajari by the leader-controlled Judiciary, a veteran political analyst warned against "fool hardy measures" that Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i might take in order to save both himself and his regime.
"This was an improper verdict and I personally do not agree with such
confrontations at all", the official news agency IRNA quoted Mr. Khatami as
having told reporters after a cabinet session on Wednesday.
He came out on the defence of the outspoken scholar two days after the leader of the Islamic Republic had warned him and the students who protests the death sentence that he might call on the "popular forces to enter the stage".
Analysts interpreted the unprecedented warning as a menace to wage a coup in case the ever-growing protest movement by the students gets out of control.
"Evidences tells us that Khameneh'i see the end of his political career approaching fast and in order to save both himself and his regime from collapse, he is getting ready for any adventure", said Dr. Hoseyn Baqerzadeh, a human rights activist and political analyst who lives in England.
Observing that the ongoing protest movement by the students is the largest since the July 1999 demonstrations, Mr. Baqerzadeh added that the sentence has heightened tensions between the two wings of the Iranian theocracy, where the Government and the Parliament, both controlled by the reformists, condemn the verdict but the leader-controlled Judiciary and conservatives approve of it.
"(Grand Ayatollah Roohollah) Khomeini once had said that when dictators grow old, they became insane. This maxim proved right with him and it seems that Ayatollah Khameneh'i is reaching that point", he added.
A court in the western city of Hamadan sentenced to death Dr. Aqajari on charges of insulting both the prophet of the Muslims and the clerical corps by suggesting religious restructuring of Islam, including the Islamic principle of emulation (Taqlid) from religious leaders in Shi’a-dominated Iran.
The court further banned the university professor from teaching for ten years, an eight-year imprisonment in desert cities as well as receiving 74 lashes, not explaining if the prison term and exile would be applied before or after the execution.
Mr. Aqajari has refused to appeal the sentence, challenging the hard-line judiciary to carry out the execution, his lawyer, Mr. Saleh Nikbakht announced Wednesday.
"My client has written to me that he doesn't allow me to appeal the sentence'', Mr. Nikbakht told a news conference, adding that in his letter, Mr. Aqajari says "I "should have died when I lost my leg defending my country (during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war) but I've lived two decades more ... If the death verdict is true, let them carry it out, and if it is wrong, then judiciary needs to work on its shortcomings''.
Mr. Nikbakht called the verdict politically motivated. But the Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Shahroudi, the leader-appointed Head of the Judiciary has confirmed the sentence, saying that those who criticise the decision are "ignorant''.
The verdict against Mr. Aqajari touched off days of uninterrupted demonstrations by angry students, triggering one of the most serious conflict between Iran’s ruling conservatives and the reformists, led respectively by Ayatollah Khameneh'i and President Khatami.
Thousands of university students took to the streets to protest the verdict, and demonstrations continued Wednesday at universities in Tehran. Nearly two-thirds of the reformist-dominated parliament called Sunday for the sentence to be overturned.
More than 5,000 students gathered at Tehran University in support of Mr. Aqajari, chanting "The execution of Aqajari is the execution of the university" and urged the authorities to free all political prisoners.
The momentum of protests appeared to be growing, with more students gathering in Tehran each day and demonstrations spreading to the provincial cities.
After their rally in Tehran, students marched through the huge university campus, holding hands and singing "Ey Iran," the national anthem before the 1979 Islamic revolution
Protesters also chanted slogans against Mr. Hashemi Shahroodi and the former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The students also called for the resignation of President Khatami, showing their frustration with him.
Police, Revolutionary Guards and the Basij voluntary forces did not intervene, but prevented the demonstrators to come out of the campus.
Mr. Khatami hoped that the case would be resolved in the earliest so that the ensuing problems are averted. "Given that this ruling must not have been issued at all, we hope this matter will be settled in a favourable manner so that no problems are created for the country," he said. ENDS AQAJARI STUDENTS PROTEST 141102