City boy

Ayatollah Boroujerdi (son of the prominent Shia cleric Seyyed Mohammad Ali Kazemeini Boroujerdi) has been sentenced to death together with 17 of his followers.

The secular ideology of this Shia cleric is that the Hidden Imam is the only one who has the legitimate competence to rule and pass judgment based on Islam, not the “Supreme Leader” and other self pro-claimed “Marjas” (Council of Guardian) who have the ultimate power in Iran, one after the other above the mostly symbolic president and parliament.

The popularity of Kazemeini made the regime very uncomfortable last year after many speeches he gave against political Islam which lead to his arrest by the Ministry of Intelligence (who at the time spread rumours that Kazemeini claims that he is the 12th Imam himself) . The arrest came in October 2006 in which police faced confrontation by 100s of his followers who surrounded the area. Over 40 of the followers were also arrested, including bloggers who were there to report whats happening.

Since then Kazemeini has gone under heavy tortures in Section 209 of Evin prison. His health started to deteriorate after a hunger strike he started in February, eye-witness reports from his appearance infront of “Special Court for Clergy” (SCC, set up by Khomeini himself in 1987 to combat clerics against the regime) in March claim that he was in a very poor condition, unable to walk upright and was coughing up blood.

In March Kazemeini also appeared on a disgusting TV programme by the regime which goes live in prisons to show tortured political prisoners’ forced fake “confessions”. He appeared in prison uniform and poor condition admitting to his “lies” and how his “poor followers” believed in them!

On Sunday the secular cleric and 80 of his followers appeared in front of the illegal court without the right to have a lawyer. He was sentenced to death on the grounds of over 30 accusations including threat to national security, calling the Velayat-e Faqih “illegitimate”, connections with “anti-revolutionary” forces and spying for them inside the country, creating a new religion called “the traditional religion”, etc etc.

He was in such a poor condition that he found speaking very difficult but he said to the court that he is not guilty of being political but his only real crime is his religious beliefs.