| Submit your comments on this article |
| Axis of Evil |
| Iran Scholar Warned Death Verdict Stays |
| 2002-11-26 |
| Iran's chief prosecutor warned Tuesday that a history professor's death sentence for questioning hard-line rule will be final if he continues to refuse to appeal. Hashem Aghajari, a professor at Tarbiat-e-Modarres, or Teachers Training university in Tehran, has refused to contest the court's decision, challenging the hard-line judiciary to carry out the sentence. The case has provoked the largest student protests in three years. On Tuesday, four organizers of the demonstrations were arrested, including two who were beaten up before being hauled away, a fellow student said. He'll probably be dead when it's all over, but Aghajari could very well be the spark that sets fire to the revolution. If it's not him, it'll be the guy after him, or the one after that one... ``Aghajari is obliged to appeal,'' Iran's official news agency quoted hard-line cleric Abdol-Nabi Namazi as saying. ``If he does not appeal within the 20-day period, the verdict will be final,'' Namazi said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. No, he's not obliged to appeal. Either an appeal is voluntary, or judicial procedure calls for an automatic review. He's not obliged to do something that's voluntary, regardless of what some cleric says. Sometimes it sucks, being a holy man, doesn't it? Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told The Associated Press that the chief prosecutor's comments ``contradict the law.'' They don't make any sense, either... ``The "So they can go ahead and do their jobs, or they can go ahead and hang my client and in six months or a year someone else will be dancing on their graves..." Iran's "Nope. Nope. Ain't nobody gonna rush me..." The verdict and death sentence prompted denunciations from parliament and the public with university students calling the decisions ``medieval'' and ``disgusting.'' And in Iran this is unusual because...? I wish we had professors with Aghajari's guts in this country... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |