The front pages of many Tehran newspapers reflected...

The front pages of many Tehran newspapers reflected the predictable outrage that Hashem Aghajari's death sentence provoked among reformists in Iran. Many carried a statement from the head of the parliamentary judicial and legal committee, Nasser Qavvami - a reformist - who said he had read the comments attributed to Aghajari, and found nothing in them to justify even a prison sentence, far less death. "The issuing of such verdicts by the judiciary has damaged the credibility of the judicial system, and the image of the Shia clerical establishment," he said. Reflecting concern at international reaction, another reformist paper said the death sentence and the jailing of other liberal figures, was taking place at a time when even Saddam Hussein was releasing his political prisoners. "The revolution should not eat its own children," the daily Ettemad said in an editorial. One of the most ringing denunciations of his death sentence came from Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a senior cleric who is currently under house arrest in the holy city of Qom for criticising the way things are being run. In a statement, he said that if anybody had wanted to deal a blow to Islam and the Shia clergy, the "harsh and unjustified" death sentence on Aghajari was the best possible way to do it. Casting doubt on the religious validity of the sentence, he accused "a minority in the country of toying with the lives and reputations of others, in order to preserve their own power and positions". Even some conservatives seemed embarrassed at the death sentence on Hashem Aghajari. One of their leading commentators, Amir Mohebian, expressed the conviction that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamen'i, would intervene to quash the verdict. "His pardon would have very positive repercussions in the country and abroad," he said in an editorial in the conservative Resalat newspaper. The US State Department and Canadian Foreign Ministry both expressed serious concern about Aghajari's fate. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, quoted in newspapers, said the sentence was "an internal matter." "Any foreign interference will make the atmosphere surrounding this case political and complicate it," he said. Student organisations and reformist politicians also called on Khamenei or the Supreme Court to lift the execution order.