► (088) ◄ To Explain the Truth of the Matter as a Slight Objection to the Report of the Experts' Committee

To Explain the Truth of the Matter as a Slight Objection

to the Report of the Experts' Committee

I say the following in reply to the accusation that I exploit religious emotions for politics:

I cite as witnesses my whole life and those who know me and call on them to testify that even at the time I was political I did not exploit religion for politics, but strove with all my strength to make politics serve religion and follow it. The story of my life and my friends will testify to this. Moreover, at the beginning of the Second Constitutional Period when those who wanted the Shari'a were being hanged, the chairman of the military court and its members declared in the course of the trial of that terrible court set up by the Operation Army, on the day it had condemned fifteen men to the gallows: "You're a reactionary! You clamoured for the Shari'a!" Is it at all possible that the person who replied: "I am ready to sacrifice my life for a single matter of the Shari'a! If constitutionalism consists of the tyranny of one party and it acts contrary to the Shari'a, let the whole world bear witness that I am a reactionary!" — is it at all possible that such a person, who attaches not the slightest importance to his execution and would sacrifice his whole world and everything he has for the Shari 'a, would exploit religion and the Shari'a for some political ends. Anyone who deems it possible could not be a Sophist even.

Furthermore, it can only be the result of malice and vindictiveness to accuse of exploiting religion for politics, inferring the disturbance of public peace and security, a person who considers it a serious error to violate the rights of a single innocent in this country by serving the interests through politics of ten cruel despots, and has never retaliated towards the ten tyrannous wrongdoers who have tormented him, nor even cursed them, and throughout his life has taken the avoidance of public disturbances as a guiding principle. It is obviously a grievous injustice to say about a person that he causes harm to either public order or the country or politics when despite all their investigations, six provinces and six courts of law have discovered no incident involving his hundreds of thousands of students, although they have suffered unprecedented ill-treatment, torments, and insults over twenty-eight years.

They should not suppose that in the face of these unjust accusations I am trying to absolve myself of responsibility and save myself from conviction. I can assure you, and my friends who know me well will affirm, that