Wednesday, May 16, 2012


 
   By Farnaz Fassihi 
   Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

BEIRUT--Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi, 31, expected his song evoking the name of a Shiite saint to save Iran from its current rulers to stir up controversy, but he never imagined it might cost him his life.

He is now being dubbed the "Salman Rushdie of Music" after two influential clerics in Iran issued fatwas--religious edicts--justifying his murder on grounds of blasphemy last week.

An Iranian website called Shiite News put a $100,000 bounty on his head, and a line-up of volunteer assassins have formed an online group called "the spontaneous campaign to execute Shahin Najafi" with 113 people signed up, pledging skills, money, cars, houses and trips to holy shrines in Iraq as a bonus for the killer.

"I am still in disbelief. I'm only 31, with my whole life ahead of me. I have a thousand dreams and so many things I still want to do," said Najafi in a phone interview from a safe house in Germany where he has been hiding since last week under the protection of German police.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)

German authorities declined to comment further on the case but confirmed Najafi is now under their watch. Najafi, a native of a small port town in southern Iran, fled to Germany in 2005 after an intelligence agent threatened him for staging underground rock and pop concerts.

Iranian officials haven't commented on the controversy surrounding Najafi, nor has Iran denounced the open calls to murder an artist in a European country. But the case presents Iran with a public image problem ahead of important talks next week with the international community in Baghdad over its nuclear program.

In the past few months, Iran has sought to improve its image as a rogue nation by offering to reopen talks and its officials have swapped rhetoric with conciliatory remarks focused on Iran's willingness to build trust with the West.

The efforts paid off to some extent at an initial meeting in Istanbul in March where both sides claimed the negotiations ended on a positive note, paving the way for a second round in Baghdad at the end of May. Iran claims the world should trust its word that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But the case of Najafi, which is gaining international attention and uproar, could unravel Iran's carefully crafted reimaging and expose the deep flaws within a system where radical militia and clerics have the power to act independently, even when it undermines the regime's policies.

"The system in Iran is very opaque. Iranian authorities could make it very clear that people who are inciting murder could be held accountable, and that's something they aren't currently doing," said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International's deputy program director for Middle East and Africa.

The fatwa against Najafi offers a flashback to the death fatwa issued by the revolution's founding father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Rushdie in 1989 for the British Indian writer's novel "The Satanic Verses." Rushdie went into hiding for years, and Iran suffered diplomatic fallout with Europe over the fatwa.

While Najafi isn't nearly as renowned as Rushdie and the clerics who issued the fatwa aren't as powerful as Iran's supreme leader, the threat is nonetheless equally serious, human-rights organizations say.

Najafi says he is too young to go into hiding and stop performing but fears he might never be safe in Europe, where Iran has assassinated dissidents in the past. He said his home phone number and address in Germany were posted on websites and blogs calling for his death. He hasn't contacted his family in Iran in fear of getting them in trouble.

He has gained the outpouring of support of many ordinary Iranians. His Facebook page spiked from 20,000 members to more than 200,000, with many messages from people inside Iran praising his courage. Najafi says he doesn't regret the song and refuses to apologize, arguing that evoking a saint's name is a freedom of expression and not a religious insult.

-Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

--David Crawford contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

16-05-12 0359GMT