TEHRAN, July 21 (AFP) - Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari, sentenced to five years in jail for insulting Islam, will be stuck in jail pending his appeal because his family is unable to raise the hefty bail demanded, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Saleh Nikbakht was quoted by the student news agency ISNA as saying he had appealed for the figure of one billion rials (115,000 dollars) to be halved so his client could enjoy his first breath of freedom after nearly two years behind bars, part of which was in solitary confinement and on death row.
After a second re-trial of the leftist history professor, the judiciary handed Aghajari a five year jail term, two years of which were suspended, on charges of "insulting religious sanctities", "propagating against the regime" and "spreading false information to disturb the public mind".
The activist, who lost a leg fighting in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, sparked the wrath of Iran's powerful hardliners in 2002 when he said in a speech to students in Hamedan that Muslims were not "monkeys" and "should not blindly follow" religious leaders.
The speech was initially seen as blasphemy and apostacy, challenging some of the fundamental dogmas of the Islamic republic -- namely the concept of emulating top Shiite clerics and the position of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader.
Aghajari was sentenced to death in his first trial, behind closed doors, in the western city of Hamedan in November 2002. After the verdict sparked widespread student protests, Khamenei intervened and ordered a re-trial.
But after the court defiantly upheld its verdict in a re-trial, a second round of hearings was ordered to take place in a more sympathetic court in the capital, Tehran. That court dropped all charges that could lead to the death penalty.