Hundreds of Iranian students chanting "Political prisoners...

Hundreds of Iranian students chanting "Political prisoners should be released!" protested against Iran's hardline judiciary and Hashem Aghajari's death sentence for blasphemy in the biggest political demonstration for over three years. About 500 students made fires outside the Tehran University campus gates and chanted in unison: "Freedom of thought forever!" and "Our problem is the judiciary!", witnesses said. "Execution of Aghajari is execution of thought in Iran!" the students shouted as dozens of plain clothes police and members of the radical conservative vigilante group Ansar e-Hezbollah watched from behind the police cordon, witnesses said. Students told Reuters the protest was originally called to complain about poor food facilities at the university, but quickly turned political. Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told the official IRNA news agency: "We are bitterly disappointed that such a sentence was handed down against a Muslim academic...whose integrity has been well attested. We will have to see if this verdict is not more harmful for Islam, the Islamic Republic and the clergy than the offence which Aghajari is accused of."