…whatever their earthly crimes were, the two men executed last month were also accused of another offense far more serious than simply protesting against a government.

They were convicted of being “mohareb,” enemies of God.

That is the worst possible crime in Shiite Muslim law, according to Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
The legal implications are clear, he said.

“A mohareb, according to Shiite law, is executed,” he said.

That the regime is labeling its opponents enemies of God is a sign of how rattled it is by the protests, he said.

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It will be interesting to watch how the professional journalism organizations rate the image.

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An Iranian opposition website said police forces were refusing orders to shoot at opposition protesters during clashes on Sunday in central Tehran, where it was reported earlier that at least four demonstrators had been killed.

“Police forces are refusing their commanders’ orders to shoot at demonstrators in central Tehran … some of them try to shoot into air when pressured by their commanders,” the Jaras website said.

Four protesters have been killed by police elsewhere though.

“Three of our compatriots were martyred and two were injured in clashes. The (website) reporter who was on the scene said these three were directly shot at by military forces,” Rahesabz.net reported.

Rahesabz said a fourth protester was later killed near Vali Asr intersection on Enghelab.

“The people are carrying the body of this martyr and are shouting slogans,” it said citing eyewitnesses.

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For years, Montazeri had accused the country’s ruling Islamic establishment of imposing dictatorship in the name of Islam, and he persisted with his criticism following June’s disputed presidential election.

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Five days after renewed student protests across Iran showed that the dispute over the country’s presidential elections is from over, hundreds of Iranian men posted pictures of themselves wearing the Islamic headscarf on social networking website Facebook in solidarity with a detained student leader.

Majid Tavakoli of Tehran’s prestigious Amir Kabir University was arrested on Dec. 7 during anti-government demonstrations and pictures of him wearing the chador, the women’s full-length black wrap, were published on the semi-official Fars news agency, which reported that Tavakoli attempted to flee Iran dressed as a woman.

The pictures provoked a furious response from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents who claim the government faked the photographs, which were also deemed derogatory to women, to embarrass him.

A “Free Majid Tavakoli” group was created on Facebook, calling the student leader “a symbol of integrity and courage,” and more than 380 Iranian men have showed solidarity with him and posted pictures of themselves wearing a veil or chador with captions such as “I am Majid Tavakoli” or “It is not shame to be a woman, it is shame to be a man like you.”

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More anti-hegemons:

The new disciplinary actions came as officials reported that a presidential panel has begun an investigation of the humanities curriculums at universities, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported. Although the panel was formed a year ago, it did not start work until after recent calls to purge universities of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” based on the fear that the teaching of secular concepts helped fuel the political unrest following the June 12 election.

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Iran’s supreme leader has said he does not believe opposition leaders blamed for the country’s post-election unrest were knowing agents of foreign powers.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments contradict accusations which have frequently been made by hardliners.

A number of senior opposition figures are currently on trial in Tehran accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest.

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A previous post here about the utility of rape in marginalizing protesters.

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