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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| After court confessions, Iran trial called appalling |
| 2009-08-02 |
| After Iran released "confessions" made by opposition political activists, the head of the minority Reformist bloc of parliament reacts by saying that the trial process has left everyone traumatized. "The method used in the trials of those arrested in which they [the prisoners] do not have access to lawyers and neither the detainees nor their families are aware of the charges [they are facing] has left everyone in a state of shock," Mohammad-Reza Tabesh, head of the minority Reformist faction in the Iranian parliament said on Saturday. Saturday's trial was held after nearly 3,000 people were arrested in Iran in the aftermath of the unrest that ensued Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election with the June 12 vote. With Iran witnessing massive opposition rallies staged by supporters of defeated presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi in the weeks following the vote, some protests turned violent, leaving at least 20 people dead and hundreds of others injured. Later on, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution called for the administration of justice in the case of the country's post-vote detainees. Addressing concerns over the treatment of those arrested in the course of the unrest, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ordered the shutdown of a "non-standard" prison. "Those arrested are in critical conditions and ... very worrying reports have been received about them from their families," Tabesh insisted. Referring to the order, Tabesh said if Ayatollah Khamenei had been aware of the situation in other prisons, the treatment of the detainees and their families, and the violation of the law in dealing with them, he would -- in a similar command -- order "the administration of justice and fairness in putting to trial the detainees of the recent events". "We cannot stop short of expressing our concern about the method used in the trial and hope that this tactic is not a complete version of a pre-planned scenario of which the prisoners have had no information," Tabesh added. The remarks come in response to a Saturday court session in which opposition activists and protesters were charged with rioting, threatening national security and conspiring against the ruling system being read against those in the dock. Reformist figure Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, accused of provoking and taking part in deadly riots after the recent presidential election in Iran, allegedly testified during the hearing that the vote was "clean" and that allegations of fraud in the presidential election were "a lie". Tabesh quoted Abtahi's wife -- who was recently granted permission to visit her husband in prison -- as saying that the Reformist activist "had lost 10 kilos in 43 days" in detention. |
| Posted by:Fred |