Liberal martyrdom in Iran: an academic takes on the ayatollahs.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Columns - Hashem Aghajari

IT'S A PITY that so much of the attention given to the Islamic world is lavished on its thugs and psychopaths, because its men and women of courage are largely overlooked.

The case of the Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari is an impressive example. In June, Aghajari, a popular history professor who belongs to a left-wing opposition group, gave a public lecture calling for political reform and "religious renewal." Each generation, he argued, has the right to interpret Islam anew; no one should "blindly follow religious leaders" of the past. The result was that he was charged in Iran's religious courts with apostasy; on November 6 he was found guilty in a closed-door trial. He was sentenced to be hanged.

Iran's restrictive and brutal Islamist government has lost the support of much of the populace, and the Aghajari verdict immediately threw the country into turmoil. Outraged pro-reform members of the national parliament exchanged bitter accusations with the conservative clerical judiciary (the parliamentary speaker described his reaction as one of "hatred" and "disgust"), and students in Tehran and elsewhere staged daily street demonstrations in support of Aghajari. Iran's political stability, shaky in any event, quickly became an issue.

Within a week of the verdict, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared on national television threatening to use the hard-line popular militias to impose order. "The day the three branches are unable or unwilling to settle major problems;' he told the country, "the leadership will, if it thinks it necessary, use the popular forces to intervene."

Aghajari had the right to appeal his verdict, which presumably would have allowed a deal to be worked out to defuse the crisis. (Other controversial death sentences have been reduced on appeal.) But in a dramatic turn of events, Aghajari refused to appeal. According to his lawyer, Aghajari said that "those who have issued this verdict have to implement it if they think it is right or else the judiciary has to handle it." In other words, he had determined to risk his life so as to force Iran's judicial establishment to confront its own barbarity.

In the meantime, Aghajari's family reported that he was suffering in prison. According to Amnesty International, his right leg, amputated at the knee as a result of the Iran-Iraq war, had become infected. He was unable to stand or walk, even to the prison bathrooms. Nevertheless, he was prepared to sacrifice...