| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iran |
| Aghajari refuses to have his head examined |
| 2003-03-16 |
| Dissident Iranian professor Hashem Aghajari, under sentence of death for blasphemy, has rejected a court order for his mental health to be examined by doctors, his wife said Saturday. "The supreme court has decided that Aghajari be examined by five legal specialist physicians to test his mental balance," Zahra Behnudi said. "My husband considers this a new accusation against him and will not attend the medical test," she added, claiming the judiciary wanted to pass her husband off as a madman. "He is in good health and as a university professor and religious intellectual considers these accusations inappropriate." Sounds kinda Soviet, doesn't it? It's the same mindset — "If you don't agree with me, you must be nuts." Aghajari, a veteran of the 1979 Islamic revolution, was sentenced to death on November 6 for questioning the right to rule of Iran's Shiite Muslim clergy. He had called in a speech for a reformation within Islam and said Muslims did not have to follow their religious leaders blindly. Iran's supreme court overturned the death sentence against Aghajari on February 14, but he is to be retried by the same court that ordered his execution. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |