    64

    sin

    you were told.194

    When Khomeini took power, his revolutionary followers set up

    kangaroo courts and dragged one victim after another before the

    bench--executing a total of 10,000 "criminals and

    counter-revolutionaries."195  The "revolutionary tribunals" met at mid-

    night, carried on their proceedings in secrecy, refused to let the accused

    defend themselves, and often did away with victims because of some

    private grudge held by one of the self-appointed "revolutionary

    judges."

    Iranian prime minister Mehdi Bazargan felt this was an outrage.

    But Khomeini defended the operation of the tribunals as true Islamic

    "justice."   According to Iranian historian and journalist Shaul Bakash,

    "Khomeini took the view that the insistence on open trials, defense

    lawyers and proper procedures was a reflection of 'the western

    sickness among us,' that those on trial were criminals, and 'criminals

    should not be tried, they should be killed.'"  Khomeini's notion of

    justice, then, was our idea of despotism.196

    The "crimes" for which people were exterminated under the

    Ayatollah's "revolutionary courts" ranged from membership in the

    wrong political party to "corruption on earth."  On July 3, 1980, two

    middle-aged women and two men were dressed in white robes in the

    town of Kerman, led to a plot of open ground, buried up to their necks,

    then stoned to death.  The women were charged with prostitution, the

    men with "sexual crimes."  The judge who had passed sentence hurled

    the first stone.  The country's chief prosecutor was wildly enthusiastic

    about the executions.  Stoning appears in the holy book, and the

    exultant high official said, "We approve of anything in the Koran." 197

    Not everyone agreed that the state should be ruled by a gang of

    ecclesiastics.  But the clerics vigorously enforced their dominance,

    organizing personal armies, encouraging the creation of revolutionary

    brigades armed with machine guns, and controlling the Hezbollah,

    gangs of Moslem zealots armed with clubs.  If secular-minded groups

       that was not allowed.  Real freedom meant the right to worship as

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