Iran Executing "Iran's Mandela," Dissident Hero Ayatollah Boroujerdi

The more the Europeans attempt to appease the Iranian gangsters,the worse everything becomes. What is going to take to awaken them?

When Iranian Clerics focused on their religious vocations and the spiritual roles, they received the love and respect of their people. When they became political they began to lose this respect.

This planned execution is disgraceful. Iran is coming off the rails.

The cleric being accused is completely right in his campaign to separate state issue from politics. They should look at my country Australia. We are a happy free and tolerant country because our citizens determine what is right.

Is he still alive? On one hand I hope so, on another his misery must be great...

Thank you for this excellent, and disturbing article. Bless this man and I pray he will be safe. I am not a Muslim but this brave and intelligent man and others like him calling for reform are the saviours of us ALL..but the violence and intimidation they suffer shame the face of true Islam.

Don't execute him. Free speech is essential. In this case, he is correct in his views.

I have met Iranians and they were very polite and sincere people and it is hard to understand why their leaders do not allow basic freedoms? They call America the great Satan but when a man who follows the very same religion as them they want to kill him for saying separate Church and State? Surely they must be the great great Satan because at least America has the brains to realise that a wise leader uses wisdom to rule it's people and not tyranny because dictatorships only causes rebellion through resentment and ultimate collapse from within !

I personally like a lot of the Iranian way of life because we in the West have had way to much freedom to do things that cause moral collapse even my Gran told me while she was alive she was glad she was born and lived her life when she did because everything is upside down and things are accepted that were utterly shameful in her day and the type of crimes that were happening never took place in her day like people breaking into houses and women were safe to walk the street and babies were not murdered and marriage was respected and family values were gold and the husband was honoured an elderly respected but our Western societies are falling apart as there is no real values.

Iran is going the same road but through the opposite way by oppression ! Why don't their great academics openly debate this man on tv and show a solid case why he is wrong, then others will see if the man is wrong and no one will go down that road again? All they will do is reinforce the same desire to separate Church and State !! Why not agree a constitution that cannot be changed then let genuine politicians run politics and their religious leaders run the spiritual side ? Clearly they are terrified because they know something is seriously wrong with their system and they are just trying to hide it through tyranny oppression and fear !

John Kerry's daughter is married to an Iranian in 2009 and the best man was Kerry's counterpart in Iranian nuke 'deal", which endangers not only Israel, whom the genocidal ayatollahs want to "wipe of the map" but also India, and Europe as Iranians have long range missiles which can reach Europe and India.

Nobody whose common sense had not been destroyed by the politically correct cultural relativism could take Kerry/Obama's taqiyya and kitman- Islamic methods of lying and concealing for Islam) seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k695GEtnfL8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK0d9gnsa5U and about Iranian bomb. Latma TV made these videos in 2011, long before Obama committed treason and threw Israel under the genocidal ayatollahs bus ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGBVg2nUWMw).

Donald Trump will correct this "deal" of traitors Obama/Kerry/Clinton and their Muslim Brotherhood.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been held incommunicado in quarantine cell in heavy chains and there is no evidence that he is alive or executed.

This is a very ominous situation especially given that the Iranian government has been trying to slowly kill him for the past 8 years.Following article By Marjan Keypour Greenblatt and Dr. Kavian S. Milani covers his story.

In the U.S., we pride ourselves on freedom of speech. Regrettably, this is not the case in many countries. For example, the Iranian regime concentrates on oppression of thought.

For the past eight years the Islamic Republic has been trying to punish a religious leader, Ayatollah Kazemani Boroujerdi, for the crime of expressing "anti-government views." Boroujerdi is a senior member of the Shia clergy and an advocate for separation of religion and state, and in light of the publication of his new book, the authorities are reportedly working at expediting a death sentence for him. He is slated to die by hanging.

It is hard to enumerate the array of basic human rights violations that have been directed against him without numbing the audience or simply making them tune out. The determination to eliminate Boroujerdi has become apparent; the question is whether it will be a slow death through excessive torture or an eventual pull of the rope. Regardless of Boroujerdi's fate, human rights activists and the general public should know what he stands for in an effort to comprehend some communities' struggles for religious freedom.

The 56-year-old cleric, sometimes described as "Iran's Mandela," suffers from severe health conditions, exacerbated by torture, malnutrition and medical neglect in prison. It's been reported that, as part of Boroujerdi's punishment, his wife was raped in front of other family members. He has endured group beatings and been exposed to toxic chemicals during his solitary confinement. Some believe that attacks by violent prisoners actually were thinly disguised assassination attempts. For the past few days he has been incommunicado and taken to an undisclosed location for what is feared to be a "quiet execution."

Ironically, Boroujerdi is a devout Shia Muslim; his prestigious title "Ayatollah," or "sign of God," positions him at the same level as the nation's president, Ayatollah Hassan Rouhani, and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Nonetheless, his scholarship and study of Islam led him to speak about the value of the separation of religion and government and assert that by maintaining a line between the two, both parties can be safeguarded and optimized. And this is not a novel idea: Many other Shia scholars share this view, including the revered cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq. Nonetheless, Boroujerdi's new book, which expresses his religious views, has triggered intense fury against him.

The Islamic Republic has long considered such ideas "heretical" and punishable by death. Last week, Iran's Special Prosecutor for the Clergy, Ayatollah Mohammad Moavedi, reportedly visited Boroujerdi in his prison cell and threatened to eliminate him and anyone who has been involved in production of this book. Specifically, he called the book apostasy and "counter to religious leadership." When Boroujerdi, in his defense, proposed the idea of a debate, he was told "we're not interested in debates; we prosecute and execute."

If it's any consolation, many prisoners languishing in isolation in prisons throughout Iran are not lucky enough to receive a visitor, even one bearing a threat, before they are sent to the gallows.

Capital punishment for alternative thought is a hallmark of the Iranian regime. Just last week, while President Rouhani visited New York and charmed world leaders at the United Nations with his rhetoric, a psychology scholar, Mohsen Amir Aslani, was executed in Tehran on charges of heresy. His crime? The application of a so-called "psychological interpretation of the Koran," specifically to the story of Jonah.

What is so threatening about religious freedom and freedom of expression for the Islamic Republic? Shouldn't a republic that prides itself on holding democratic elections feel empowered by the diversity of its opinions and the cultivation of its democratic ideals?

At a time when people are talking about opening the lines of communication between Iran and the United States, it is time for Iran to also open up its society to constructive conversations about religion, government and a true democracy that can safeguard the rights of all its citizens.

As enshrined in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, freedom of religion and religious expression are core to our civil liberties and democratic values and have inspired the world. The pending execution of Ayatollah Boroujerdi is a sad reminder that not all countries share these liberties or cherish these values.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjan-keypour-greenblatt/killing-him-softly-with-t_b_5943144.html

This should be the subject of a worldwide Avaaz campaign. I knew nothing about this..

He is the light for Islam in the 21 Century.

I was more surprised to see that there were any dissidents left in Iran. Those kookie-hatted boys have had it their way now for decades, and you would think that those who doubt the ruling clique were taken care of long ago.

The good news out of this is that Iran has official corruption in the ranks, not that it wasn't evident before.

When the end of the regime finally comes, it will be a bloodbath that will make ISIS look like a Girl Scout troop.

Once again we are witness to the eradication of someone, living in a totalitarian state, who believes in a democratic society. In this case it is Iran again. While the US along with the other Western nations is trying to craft a deal to keep this rogue state from getting the nuclear bomb, Iran is quietly silencing any of the voices of dissent. Why do we, the democratic countries, continue to believe that a deal can be made? It is obvious that Iran has no intention of reforming and no intention of stopping its quest to acquire a nuclear bomb.
Using the turmoil in the world as a screen to obtain its goals is a tried and true method to establish "facts on the ground" so that we are forced to negotiate on a different playing field than was the first intention. Watch for Putin's next move as he is also a player in the "game".
My question; why have we, the West, not learned on thing from history? Hitler, Stalin, to name just two of the megalomaniacs who wanted to establish an empire, should have taught us something, no? No, we just go blithely along thinking that this time "we" will be successful. I am disgusted.

Americans have all kinds of nice things to say about the reasonable moderate and charming Hassan Rouhani while dissidents in Iran are executed by his government. Ayatollah Boroujerdi is next. Many have preceded him. I recall American Congresses and Presidents who hesitated to help dissidents, but it seems to me that apathy has never been greater.

The silence is morally lethal. The consequences are more executions. Americans who worry about their own security and neglect that of dissidents such as Ayatollah Boroujerdi risk further demeaning of their own security. If you care only for yourselves, who are you? If you care not about others what becomes of you? If you do nothing, you exist without living.

Hassan Rouhani needs to be deterred. He needs to be afraid to be deterred. President Obama, he needs to be afraid of you.

Quick, pass an anti-Israel resolution in UN.