74 Lashes for Using the Incorrect Form of Address
 |
October 10, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
A student activist was submitted to 74 lashes just hours before his release from prison because he “insulted” the president.
Iranian student Peyman Aref received 74 lashes on Sunday for offending President Ahmadinejad with a letter that used an incorrect form of address.
Originally sentenced to an 11-month jail term in March 2010, for allegedly starting anti-Iranian propaganda by speaking to foreign media, Aref was supported by family following his release after reportedly losing a lot of blood.
The political science student, who was only informed that the lashes would be carried out just hours before he was due to be released from the notorious Evin Prison, in Tehran, yesterday, was also given a lifetime ban from any political party membership or working as a journalist after sending an open letter to Ahmadinejad omitting the formal greeting ‘Salam’.
Aref, who spoke to the website Rahesabz after his release, commented: “[My crime] was that I wrote an open letter to Ahmadinejad and reminded him of what he did to the universities.”
He added: “Whenever Ahmadinejad goes to New York [for UN general assembly meetings], he boasts that Iran is the world’s freest country, but I was brutally flogged in my country for insulting him.”
Aref, who was considered a potential threat after scoring the maximum three “penalty points” for criticising the government, sent Ahmadinejad the letter during the 2009 presidential election campaigns criticising his crackdown on politically active university students after many were barred from continuing with their studies.
Dubbed by an Iranian journalist as “shocking and unprecedented”, the punishment comes just weeks after blogger Somayeh Tohidlou, who was also a campaigner for former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, was tried for similar alleged crimes to Aref but spared severe punishment with only a “symbolic” lashing.
By Laura Beard
[Image courtesy of José Cruz]
