Some 600 students gathered at Tehran University to...

Some 600 students gathered at Tehran University to hear the sister of jailed Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari, who was sentenced to death for blasphemy, denounce "religion in the service of power".
"When religion is put in the service of power it is essential that people be able to speak about religion. That's what Aghajari did -- he criticised religion in the service of power," Zoreh Aghajari said to loud applause.
Zoreh and Aghajari's wife, Zahra Behnoudi, were participating in the first student demonstration since an original death sentence handed down in November 2002 was confirmed the previous week.
Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran University and a disabled war veteran, was convicted of blasphemy for a speech that hit at the core of Iran's 25-year-old Islamic regime.
He called for a reformation of the state religion and asserted that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders.
The demonstration at the lecture room of Tehran's technical college was called by the reformist Islamic Association of Students.
It came a day after Behnoudi revealed that her husband had told officials he would not appeal the verdict.
"Free me unconditionally or carry out the sentence. I will not appeal in order for you to lose my case again in an administrative labyrinth," she quoted him as saying.
Student leaders blasted the judiciary, the bastion of conservatism in the Islamic regime.
Speaker Said Robati said the judiciary "controls 80 percent of power and does not answer the aspirations of the people, but does whatever it wants".
Former interior minister Mostafa Tadjzadeh, a member of the main reformist party along with Aghajari, warned of larger protests such as those seen in December 2002 after Aghajari's original sentence.