Additional reporting by Riad Zein Edeen, IOL Iran Correspondent

TEHRAN, November 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iran's supreme leader ordered the judiciary to back down over the death sentence of a reformist academic, officials announced Sunday, November 17, with the parliament speaker slamming the "western double standards", in reference to the angry reaction to the sentence.

Following mounting demonstrations and disapproval even from prominent conservatives, Ayatollah Ali Khameini ordered the judiciary to revise its blasphemy verdict against Hashem Aghajari.

"I thank the supreme guide for responding favorably to a request from a group of university professors, by asking the appeals court to examine the case with greater attention," a relieved parliament speaker Mehdi Karubi announced to MPs, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Karubi, meanwhile, criticized what he described as "the West's double standards", and called on western powers, which denounced the ruling against Aghajari, to show "a suitable reaction towards the massacres perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

"I call on westerners who defended Aghajari to defend the Palestinians - who suffer daily injustices and terrible human rights violations (by the Israelis) - and also to defend other Islamic just causes," he added.

Karubi said Khameini ruled the courts need to take greater precautions before handing out such harsh rulings, while the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper - considered close to Khomeini's entourage - said the "death sentence on Hashem Aghajari will be cancelled".

Aghajari, a disabled veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and ally of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, was put on death row November 6 after his questioning of the Shiite clergy's right to rule was deemed to be blasphemous.

He said Muslims were not "monkeys" who should blindly follow the teachings of senior clerics - a comment that challenged the Shiite doctrine of emulation and the very foundation of Iran's Islamic regime.

Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikhbakht, thanked Khameini for stepping into the crisis, saying the "decision of the supreme guide will put an end to this affair".

However, just hours later, hardliners gave a violent signal to students that the protests sparked by the verdict would also have to stop.

A group of Basij militiamen attacked some 600 student activists gathered at a Tehran university campus, in a brief rampage which saw the hardliners hurl chairs and smash up tables while one student was delivering an address defending freedom of speech.

There was no immediate sign of any injuries at north Tehran's Allameh campus, and the attack - which followed more than a week of tense but largely calm demonstrations - ended after around 10 minutes. Police did not immediately intervene.

Student demonstrators had been taking a more overtly political tone, chanting slogans such as "Death to the Taliban, in Kabul and Tehran" - leading many to fear a repeat of the events of July 1999 when protests on Tehran university's campus degenerated into violent street clashes.

Over the past week, the protests have drawn as many as 2,500 at Tehran University - a hotbed of student activism - and have spread to provincial universities. A number of Aghajari's university colleagues have resigned, while classes and mid-term exams have been boycotted.

President Khatami dubbed Aghajari's conviction "inappropriate", while Interior Minister Abdolvahed Musavi-Lari and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi warned the crisis was causing serious damage to Iran's image.

A number of prominent conservatives have also voiced their dismay at the judiciary - a bastion of the Islamic republic's far-right.

Although Aghajari, 45, said he was "ready to die" and would not appeal in a show of defiance, his lawyer said that in the light of Khomeini's intervention, he would now seek to convince his client to go through the appeals process.

"Knowing the state of mind of Hashem Aghajari and after his appeal to students for calm and his wish to avoid creating tensions, I am certain he will accept to make an appeal," Nikhbakht said.