Aghajari
Tolerant as they are, the Iranian mullahs sometimes lose patience. From AP, with thanks to Basil:
TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian court has reimposed a death sentence on a university professor who criticized clerical rule, a judicial official told The Associated Press on Monday.The original sentence handed down to Hashem Aghajari in November 2002 provoked the biggest student demonstrations in years and highlighted the power struggle between reformists and conservatives in Iran.
The Supreme Court lifted the death sentence in February 2003, but a court in the western province of Hamedan then reviewed the case and reimposed the sentence, the province's chief judiciary official, Zekrollah Ahmadi, said.
However, "the Supreme Court has to look again at the verdict," Ahmadi said in a phone interview.
Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told the AP on Monday: "The sentence is not final." He did not elaborate.
Earlier Monday, Khatami criticized the judge who issued the initial death sentence against Aghajari, saying the professor had done more for the country than "that inexperienced judge who unjustly accused him of apostasy."
A history professor at a Tehran teachers' college, Aghajari was convicted in 2002 of insulting Islam and questioning the rule of hard-line clerics. He made the remarks in a speech to students in Hamedan, 190 miles southwest of Tehran.
He was sentenced to receive 74 lashes and condemned to death. He was also banned from teaching for 10 years and exiled for eight years.
The sentence sparked violent protests at Tehran University, and the demonstrations spread to major campuses around the country.
thats the way keep locking up your professors and intellectuals your society will go far
pro-orthodox:
Islam has a long history of doing just that, spanning all the way back to when Muhammad had the venerable Abu Afak assasinated for lampooning him. Then, when Asma bin Marwan, a poetess, composed disrespectful verses in response to the killing, the knife found its way into her back, too.
If you examine the phenomenon of stifling intellectual dissent, it's the mark of a religion in its dark ages. Christianity did the same with Galileo Galilei, but now the Pope acknowledges the validity of some evolutionary theory. Note, however, that Islam, even mainstream Islam, has yet to tolerate dissent, and thus is lost in the haze of dogmatic ignorance. (I say that mainstream Islam does not tolerate dissent, because it still supports the killing of apostates.)
In fact, looking yet closer, one begins to see the reason for Islam's continual scapegoating of Jews, Christians, polytheists, and atheists. (To wit, the rest of the human race.) Islam continues to subjugate its bright minds, destroy proper educational systems, and otherwise prevent itself from ever rising out of poverty. And yet, it's America's fault, or it's a centuries-long Zionist conspiracy.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Islam absolutely must undergo a renaissance period, one which allows apostasy, disbelief, criticism, and other acts which are presently punishable by death.