Freedom of speech

last updated 8 January 2015

Tehran

Thousands of students in cities across Iran took to the streets this week to protest a death sentence given to a professor. Hashem Aghajari, a well-known reformist scholar, was sentenced last week to hanging for “insulting the Prophet Mohammed,” because of a speech encouraging young Iranians to interpret Islam for themselves. The harsh sentence is part of a crackdown on reformers that is seen as retaliation for the parliament’s recent attempts to limit the power of the hard-line mullahs, who control the courts. But lawmakers have not been cowed. As the student demonstrations for Aghajari continued, many members of parliament joined in. Nearly two-thirds of the 290 legislators signed a letter urging that the sentence be overturned.