Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (14 page)

Though not required to wear clerical robes, and despite numerous attempts by Iran’s clerical courts to defrock him, he insists on wearing his clerical robes while teaching, speaking and writing about democracy. In this way, he aims to exemplify a dedication both to the spiritual message of Islam and to the possibility of an Islamic democracy.
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In an interview with
Spiegel
during the summer of 2009, Kadivar called instead for “a truly Islamic and democratic state, a state that respects human dignity and does not refuse the rights of women, a state where people can freely elect their religious and secular leaders.”
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Hashem Aghajari is a veteran of the Iran–Iraq war, a former political activist with the Warriors of the Islamic Revolution, and a former history professor at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran. On June 19, 2002, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of philosopher Ali Shariati, he delivered a speech entitled “Islamic Protestantism” to students in the western Iranian city of Hamedan. As one of Shariati’s followers, he argued that the clergy should not be seen as mediators between God and mankind, and he questioned the Shia doctrine of emulation in his oft-quoted words, “Muslims are not monkeys to blindly follow the clerics.” He
went on to say: “Religion has performed badly when it has gone along with power…. Those who believe Islamic jurisprudence is a kind of divinity on earth, that it cannot be criticized, or judged by the law, must enter debates with Islamic thinkers and let voters choose.… Governments that suppress thinking under the name of religion are not only not religious governments but are not even humane governments.… It is time for the institution of religion to become separated from the institution of government.”
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Aghajari’s speech threatened hard-line clerics; he was arrested on August 8 on charges of “insulting Islam” and, in November 2002, sentenced to death for blasphemy and apostasy.
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This verdict led to widespread student protests and calls to reconsider the case and revoke the death sentence. Partly as a result, in January 2003, the Supreme Court annulled the verdict and sent it for retrial. However, the case was sent back to the same trial court, and, in May 2004, the court once again sentenced Aghajari to death. In June, the Supreme Court annulled this once more and assigned the case to branch 1083 of the Public Court of Tehran.

The third trial began on July 10, 2004, with a crowd of fanatics gathered at the court entrance chanting, “Aghajari deserves death penalty.” The court charged him with four new offenses: “insulting religion and religious authorities” (articles 513, 514), “propaganda against the Islamic regime” (Article 500), and “publishing lies” for the purpose of inciting public opinion (Article 698). None carried the death penalty. In the course of the trial, Aghajari asserted that he was being tried for the “sin of thinking” and that “the Islam I believe in is an Islam which defends human rights, freedom, and democracy.”

On July 20, the court found him not guilty of “propaganda against Islam” and “publishing lies,” but guilty of “insulting religion.” Under Article 513 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment, the maximum punishment for blasphemy, with two years off for time previously served. He was also suspended from all social services for an additional five years. On July 31, 2004, he was released on bail of one billion rials (more than $100,000), raised by friends. He returned to his teaching position but rarely speaks in public.

Abdollah Nouri was the Minister of the Interior for a total of four years in both President Rafsanjani’s and President Khatami’s first-term cabinets, serving until 1998. He was also one of the highest-ranking clergy to support the leading dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hussain Ali Montazeri, described below, and founded
Khordad
, a paper that allowed discussion of taboo subjects such as the limits on the Supreme Leader’s powers, the rights of unorthodox clerics and groups to air their views, the right of women to divorce, and even whether laughing or clapping were un-Islamic. Soroush was one of its contributors.
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Nouri was arrested and put on trial on November 27, 1999, on charges including using his newspaper to insult the prophet Muhammad and his direct descendants,
insulting Ayatollah Khomeini, backing political parties wanting a secular Iran, and seeking friendly ties with the United States and Israel. The prosecutor cited articles in
Khordad
that stated people should be allowed to clap, whistle, and cheer at concerts and political rallies, that criticized divorce laws and the Islamic legal precept of
qisas
(retaliation), and that said of the clergy that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Nouri refused to back down, and he criticized regime clerics for reneging on promises of democracy and for defending a repressive system, which he believed violated Qur’anic precepts. He also declared, “I totally reject the court, its membership, and its competence to conduct this trial… what has happened to us, to our revolution, to our faith… that one group of clerics can make allegations against another like this?” Nouri’s challenge of the court’s legitimacy also questioned Khomeini’s legacy. Khomeini had established the clergy court by personal decree to deal with rising resistance to Islamic rule, and Nouri, citing the 1980 constitution, said that not even “the leader”—a reference to Khomeini—could establish courts outside the framework of the constitution.
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The Special Court for the Clergy reached its verdict on the same day as Nouri’s arrest and trial. It found him guilty on fifteen counts, including publishing sacrilegious articles, opposing the teachings of the founder of the Islamic Republic, antireligious propaganda, insults against Khomeini, destabilization of public opinion, and advocating relations with the United States. Under the vagaries of Iranian legal practice, these charges could amount to heresy, with an attendant death penalty, but he was instead sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined fifteen million rials. However, in October 2002, he was released after his brother, Alireza Nouri, a member of Parliament, was killed in a car accident. Mehdi Karroubi, the Speaker of the Parliament, wrote to the Supreme Leader asking that Nouri be freed out of consideration for his grieving father.
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After religious student and blogger Mojtaba Lotfi posted on the Internet a sermon from the oppositionist Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, he was arrested in the city of Qom on October 8, 2004, and charged with “spreading false information about the Supreme Guide.” Montazeri’s son-in-law, Mojtaba Feiz, also had his home searched but he was not detained.
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Three days after the arrest, the pro-regime newspaper
Jomhouri Eslami
said that Lotfi was “one of the carriers of false information via the anti-revolutionary media.”
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This was not Lotfi’s first arrest. In 2004, shortly after posting an article titled “Respect for Human Rights in Cases Involving the Clergy,” he was arrested and sentenced to three years and ten months in prison, though he was released on bail, pending an appeal hearing that was never scheduled.
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Many commentators believe that the real target of the arrest was Montazeri, a prominent religious critic of the regime who also met with political reformers and encouraged them to unite to challenge Ahmadinejad in the then-upcoming
elections. Montazeri had major religious stature, being a
grand marja
, a source of emulation, and, until 1989, was believed to be the designated successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. However, a falling-out with Khomeini over Montazeri’s criticism of the regime’s restrictions on freedom and human rights ended that possibility. Montazeri strenuously objected to the mass executions that took place in the period leading up to Khomeini’s death and stated after the 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie that “[p]eople in the world are getting the idea that our business in Iran is just murdering people.” He also taught that apostates should not be subject to earthly punishments.
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He was placed under house arrest in October 1997, and his religious school was forcibly closed. However, in part through use of the Internet, he continued to criticize the regime and issue dissenting religious fatwas, including one demanding equal rights for Baha’is.
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Due to Montazeri’s religious stature, advanced age (born 1922), and large following, the regime remained cautious about targeting him directly and so tried to intimidate and silence him by attacking those, such as Lotfi, who posted his sermons. The sermon Lotfi posted called Ahmadinejad to task for calling Iran “the world’s freest country.” It challenged Ahmadinejad: “Why do your words not match your deeds inside the country? You call Iran the freest country in the world when you are outside, but inside Iran you deprive us of our basic and legal rights.” He went on to say that even he, a key participant in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, had had his property confiscated and his speech censored and, if this could happen to him, how much worse it must be for the average people of Iran.

Lotfi was held for six months and unofficially released on August 28, 2005. Because of the nature of his release, the regime did not confirm the completion of his sentence, and so the original charges and sentence remained in force. Due to the poor conditions under which he was held, as well as prior medical problems, Lotfi’s health deteriorated in prison, and he was seriously ill at the time of his release.
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In late 2008, he was rearrested, spent fifty days in solitary confinement, and was eventually sentenced to four years in prison and five years of exile. Charges included spreading the views of Ayatollah Montazeri. He was ordered to cease any activities related to cultural issues and not to publish his works.
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On September 14, 2009, following the disputed Iranian elections, Montazeri wrote on his website that Iran had become a “military regime” rather than an Islamic government: “The regime has savagely suppressed million-strong protestors who were legally objecting to the election outcome. A large number were arrested, and an unknown number were martyred in notorious jails.” He called upon senior clergy to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people and urged them to speak out: “The grand ayatollahs are well aware of their influence on the regime.… Their silence may give the wrong impression to people that the grand ayatollahs approve of whatever is underway.”
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Montazeri’s death from a heart condition on December 20, 2009, sparked student protests, while thousands flocked to Qom to pay their respects. Other grand ayatollahs visited his home. A number of travelers to Qom were arrested before
reaching the city, and mourners there clashed with the
Basij
after what was perceived as insulting behavior by the latter.
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In the wake of his death, fellow Grand Ayatollah Youssef Sanei, also a source of emulation, sent a condolence telegram interpreted by
Al-Ahram
as a sign that Sanei hoped to take Montazeri’s place as a spiritual leader of the reformists. Shortly thereafter, the pro-government Qom Theological Lecturers Association ruled that Ayatollah Sanei’s religious pronouncements should no longer carry weight, although other clerical bodies quickly opposed the move. Sanei’s residence in Qom also came under attack by pro-government demonstrators.
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After the renewal of protests in Iran in December 2009, Ayatollah Khamenei and government loyalists called for protesters to be arrested and put to death for offending God and the prophet, as well as for insulting Ayatollah Khomeini.
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As part of this effort, the government charged opposition members with religious crimes, especially
mohareb
, or “making war against God and His Prophet.” As early as June, a regional prosecutor issued a warning to “the few elements controlled by foreigners who try to disrupt domestic security” that “the Islamic penal code for such individuals waging war against God is execution.”
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Hard-line General Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari has been quoted as saying, “Those who demonstrate against the system are waging war on Allah,” and cleric Abbas Vaez-Tabasi has asserted that “[t]hose who are behind the current sedition in the country… are mohareb [enemies of God] and the law is very clear about punishment of a mohareb.”
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The charge of
mohareb
has also been raised in a number of cases involving protesters but in some cases has been thrown out by the courts. Several members of a group of sixteen protesters, arrested over their involvement with demonstrations on the holy day of Ashura in 2010, were charged with mohareb, a decision that drew protest in an open letter from sixty Iranian intellectuals, largely expatriates. Their letter asserted, “[I]f protesting is making war against God, then we are all warriors.” Exiled Iranian former president Abolhassan Bani Sadr also criticized the regime for abusing the term “enemy of God.”
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Nonetheless, a twenty-year-old university student connected with the Ashura protests was charged with mohareb, among other offenses, on February 3. The prosecutor claimed that part of the student’s crime consisted in his participating in a prayer service at which former President Rafsanjani gave a sermon.
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At least two oppositionists had been executed for mohareb by this time, and at least ten death sentences for mohareb had been issued by February 10.
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On March 4, 2010, mohareb was among the list of charges leveled against another group, this time of nine people, sentenced for their involvement with the Ashura demonstrations. Eight of those accused were sentenced to prison terms, and the ninth to death.
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