Why Does the World Put Up with This Filth?
TIMES ONLINE: A hardline cleric close to the Iranian regime demanded the execution of leading demonstrators yesterday as the opposition ended the week in disarray.

In a televised sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called on the judiciary to “punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson”. He said that those leaders were backed by the United States and Israel. They should be treated as mohareb — people who wage war against God — and deserved execution.

In a clear warning to all other dissenters, he declared: “Anybody who fights against the Islamic system or the leader of Islamic society, fight him until complete destruction.” Leading demonstrators must be executed, Ayatollah Khatami demands >>> Martin Fletcher | Saturday, June 27, 2009

Islam: ‘The Religion of Love, Mercy, and Compassion’
Sweet soul! Ayatollah Khatami delivering Friday prayers in Tehran. Photo: TimesOnline
TIMES ONLINE: A hardline cleric seen as a mouthpiece of the Iranian regime today demanded that opposition demonstrators be punished “without mercy”.

Even as Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami delivered his uncompromising message at Tehran’s Friday prayers, foreign ministers of the world’s leading industrialised nations issued a statement deploring the regime’s violent crackdown on the protestors and demanded it “stop immediately”.

Mr Khatami’s televised sermon came at the end of a week in which the regime has brutally suppressed all streets protests and rounded up hundreds of opponents for daring to question President Ahmadinejad’s re-election. It conveyed the unmistakable message that no dissent would be tolerated, and that the crackdown would, if anything, intensify.

“I want the judiciary to ... punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson,” Mr Khatami told worshippers at Tehran university.

He said the judiciary should treat the leading “rioters” as “mohareb” - people who wage war against God. “Based on Islamic law, whoever confronts the Islamic state ... should be convicted as mohareb,” he said. “They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely" to deter others. Hardliner says Iran protesters should be punished 'without mercy' >>> Martin Fletcher | Friday, June 26, 2009