This could be an attempt to win back the loyalty, or at least the obedience, of the Iranian people who took to the streets in massive numbers to protest against the Islamic Republic over the last few months. However, often leading dissidents are charged with “corruption on earth,” so the omission from the pardons of those charged with this Qur’anic crime indicates that the mullahs are trying to weed out the leaders of the protests.
The charge is based on this Qur’an verse: “The only reward for those who make war upon Allah and his messenger and struggle to sow corruption on earth will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be expelled from the land. Such will be their degradation in this world, and in the hereafter, theirs will be an awful doom.” (5:33)
“Iran’s supreme leader issues pardon for ‘tens of thousands’ of prisoners,” Reuters, February 5, 2023:
DUBAI, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader has pardoned “tens of thousands” of prisoners including some arrested in recent anti-government protests, state news agency IRNA reported on Sunday, after a deadly state crackdown helped quell the nationwide unrest.
However, the pardon approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came with conditions, according to details announced in state media reports, which said the measure would not apply to any of the numerous dual nationals held in Iran.
State news agency IRNA said those accused of “corruption on earth” – a capital charge brought against some protesters, four of whom have been executed – would also not be pardoned.
Neither would it apply to those charged with “spying for foreign agencies” or those “affiliated with groups hostile to the Islamic Republic”, state media reported.
Iran was swept by protests following the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the country’s morality police last September. Iranians from all walks of life took part, marking one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
According to the HRANA activist news agency, about 20,000 people have been arrested in connection with the protests, which the authorities accused Iran’s foreign enemies of fomenting.
Rights groups say over 500 have been killed in the crackdown, including 70 minors. At least four people have been hanged, according to the Iranian judiciary.
In a letter to Khamenei requesting the pardon, judiciary head Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said: “During recent events, a number of people, especially young people, committed wrong actions and crimes as a result of the indoctrination and propaganda of the enemy.
Protests have slowed considerably since the hangings began….
John ..Smith says
Mr Spencer summed it all up in the opening lines of his first sentence.
“This could be an attempt to win back the loyalty, or at least the obedience, of the Iranian people.” Because that’s exactly what it is.
OLD GUY says
If he is locking up those who are corrupt he needs to be in prison with them.
Walter Sieruk says
That “supreme” leader. Khamenei, arrogantly refuses to pardon from prison the people he views as spreading “corruption of the earth”
That is according to his Islamic misogynistic worldview young women who don’t wear the hijab.
Some of them as, Mahsa Amini, was wearing her hijab. Still that Islamic tyranny’s “morality police” still murdered her for only showing a few strands of hair. Therefore that deadly incident proves valid and true that wise saying which is that ”Evil is always looking for an excuse.”
For That heinously cruel and murderous Islamic tyranny of Iran is very brutal and vicious to the Iranian people. Especially regarding females. Both girls and women.
The murder of Mahsa Amini is very sad and tragic and that horrendous evil of her being murdered is because of the oppressive vicious brutal cruel and deadly misogynistic Islamic regime of Iran.
That action of male Muslim who are officials murdering defenseless, helpless women in cold blood is a heinous and hideous has occurred before and if that murderous Islamic regime isn’t overthrown such wicked killing will continue
Another example of such callous despicable heartless anti-female evil is when a teenage girl in Iran was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and then the Islamic state “police” walked over to her and shot her dead. They did that wicked and malicious thing to her because she was talking to her boyfriend and they also didn’t like her clothing. [1]
That was a clear cut case of murder and vicious Islamic madness by Iran’s Islamic state “ police”, who call themselves the “Revolutionary Guards”, they got away with their hideous and malice –filled evil because the mullahs as well as other villains in power in that tyrannical Islamic regime.
[1] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili page 240
Walter Sieruk says
Ayatollah Khamenei will not pardon from prison with those who he considers guilty of “sowing corruption of the earth.”
The problem is that, with Islamic mindset he views that definition of that as those who are Christians with their belief and faith in Jesus and not Islam.
So concerning the subject of the persecution regarding the harassment and imprisonment and even torture of Christians of Iran further expose the intolerant brutal and murderous “mullah regime “ of Iran
First, it would be naive not to understand the those mullahs and ayatollahs didn’t have a hand in having their stooges , who are Islamic state police, the Revolutionary Guard s arrest so many Christians because those in power in the Islamic tyranny are ruthless and cruel.
Second, this is further proof that Islam is such a weak and fragile religion that the arrest of those few Christians was felt necessary by the ayatollah, mullah and imams of Iran. For those Muslim clerics are afraid that if the Iranian people even have a chance to examine and thus compare and contrast the Bible and the Quran the people of Iran might discover that the Bible of the super of those two books.
Since the foundation for the tyrannical regime of the Islamic “Republic” of Iran is based on the Quran, which is also the entire foundation for of Islam, the Muslim clerics fear that their power base might collapse. So the arrests and sentencing to death of Christians reveals extreme fear those Muslim clerics have of the Bible, For this also show that those Muslim clerics in power in that “mullahs regime” of Iran will use .the Islamic state police and their tools to stop Christians and keep the Iranian people in in ignorance of the Bible and in the darkness of Islam.
Third, those mullahs and ayatollahs and imams of Iran with their falsehoods and deceptions of the many false doctrines of Islam in which they brainwash the Iranian people in believing is something that is both sad and tragic. Those ayatollahs and mullahs are, no doubt, just as deluded as the people who they thoroughly indoctrinate with false teachings of Islam. Of such demonic deception by false teachers who are also deluded such men a have been predicted in the Bible. For in the Bible it’s written that “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived.” Second Timothy 3:13. [K.J.V.]
All those mullahs and ayatollahs are, according to the doctrines of the Bible, Isaiah 8:20. false religious teachers .Meaning false teachers who teach and indoctrinate the false doctrines of the false religion of Islam into the hearts and minds of others . Such false teachers are described in the Bible ,in Second Peter 2:1. “There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”
In addition, it should be make clear that in the context and meaning of the above Bible verse Second Peter 2:1. The word “destruction” does not mean “loss of being but loss of well-being, as the destruction of well- being . That is “going to ruin” by ending up and a terrible place of awful suffering which the Bible call hell, Luke 16:19-31.