TEHRAN, Nov 17: Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday ordered the hardline judiciary to back down over its sentencing to death of a reformist academic, but agitating students were also told that their increasingly daring protests must stop.

Following mounting demonstrations and disapproval even from prominent conservatives, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the judiciary to revise its blasphemy verdict against Hashem Aghajari.

“I thank the supreme guide for responding favourably to a request from a group of university professors, by asking the appeals court to examine the case with greater attention,” a relieved parliament speaker Mehdi Karubi announced to MPs.

Karubi said Khamenei had ruled the courts need to take greater precautions before handing out such harsh rulings, while the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper — considered close to Khamenei — said the “death sentence on Hashem Aghajari will be cancelled”.

Aghajari, a disabled veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and ally of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, was put on death row on Nov 6 after his questioning of the conservatives’ right to rule was deemed to be blasphemous.

Aghajari’s lawyer, Saleh Nikhbakht, thanked Khamenei for stepping into the crisis, saying the “decision of the supreme guide will put an end to this affair”.

But just hours later, hardliners gave a violent signal to students that the protests sparked by the verdict would also have to stop.

A group of Basij militiamen attacked some 600 student activists gathered at a Tehran university campus, in a brief rampage which saw the hardliners hurl chairs and smash up tables while one student was delivering an address defending freedom of speech.

There was no immediate sign of any injuries at the Allameh campus, and the attack — which followed more than a week of tense but largely calm demonstrations — ended after around 10 minutes. Police did not immediately intervene.

Student demonstrators had been taking a more overtly political tone, chanting slogans such as “Death to the Taliban, in Kabul and Tehran” leading many to fear a repeat of the events of July 1999 when protests on Tehran university’s campus degenerated into violent street clashes.

Over the past week, the protests have drawn as many as 2,500 at Tehran University — a hotbed of student activism — and have spread to provincial universities. A number of Aghajari’s university colleagues have resigned, while classes and mid-term exams have been boycotted.

President Khatami had dubbed Aghajari’s conviction “inappropriate”, while Interior Minister Abdolvahed Musavi-Lari and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi warned the crisis was causing serious damage to Iran’s image.

A number of prominent conservatives have also voiced their dismay at the judiciary — a bastion of the Islamic republic’s far-right.

Recent months have seen intensifying wrangling and a hardening of positions by reformists and conservatives, nudging the Islamic republic towards what many officials have warned could be a political breakdown.

Although Aghajari, 45, had said he was “ready to die” and would not appeal in a show of defiance, his lawyer said that in the light of Khamenei’s intervention he would now seek to convince his client to go through the appeals process.

“Knowing the state of mind of Hashem Aghjari and after his appeal to students for calm and his wish to avoid creating tensions, I am certain he will accept to make an appeal,” Nikhbakht said.

But while stepping in to save Aghajari from death row, Khamenei warned earlier this week that he might resort to “popular force” to end the mounting political crisis.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Basij and other hardline militias are frequently referred to as “popular forces” and, when called upon, can easily smash pro-reform protests.

Whether the Basij were acting on higher orders or on their own initiative on Sunday remained unclear, but another pro-Aghajari rally in another Tehran campus passed off without incident.

And while the Aghajari crisis may be over for now, reformist MPs are still pushing through what has been seen as a last-ditch bid for change — twin bills aimed at striking at the heart of conservative power.—AFP