They are burying me alive, says Iranian dissident

[democratic]

They are burying me alive, says Iranian dissident
(AFP)

25 July 2004

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2004/July/middleeast_July636.xml§ion=middleeast&col=

TEHERAN - Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari, sentenced to five years in jail for blasphemy, has complained that a portion of his sentence is almost as bad as the death sentence initially imposed on him, Press reports said yesterday. Aside from being sentenced to a five-year jail term, two of which were suspended, the disabled war veteran and academic was also handed five years of "deprivation of social rights" to commence when he released from jail.


"Although with this new sentence they are not going to execute me... they have banned me from teaching, writing and giving speeches. In other words they are burying me alive," he was quoted as saying in a letter to his family. The activist, who lost a leg in the Iran-Iraq war, drew the wrath of hardliners in 2002 when he said in a speech Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders.