| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Jailed Iran reformists tortured to confess foreign plot |
| 2009-06-28 |
| [Mail and Globe] Jailed members of the former Iranian reformist government are believed to have been tortured in an attempt to force them into TV "confessions" of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic regime. According to Iranian blogs and websites, the government wants to implicate in an alleged conspiracy the defeated reformist candidates in this month's presidential poll, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mehdi Karroubi. Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi supporters, are reported to have undergone "intensive interrogation" sessions in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since being arrested in a mass round-up of opposition figures following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election. The three, who all served under the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students detained in a crackdown coinciding with the brutal suppression of street protestors who believe the election was stolen. Fellow prisoners are reported to have heard screams of pain from Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister, and Ramezanzadeh, who was Khatami's government spokesperson, during interrogations at Evin's section 209, which is reserved for political prisoners and run by the hardline intelligence ministry. Aminzadeh, an ex-deputy foreign minister, was heard shouting "I am not going to give interviews." A spokesperson for Amnesty International said the reports came from "very credible sources". The Iranian authorities have used this technique before to humiliate and discredit opponents. In 2007, state television aired "confessions" by US-Iranian academics Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ramin Jahanbegloo in which they said they had worked with pro-democracy groups that the regime claimed were plotting its downfall. This week, state television broadcast interviews with several people admitting to being "terrorists" after purportedly taking part in street demonstrations. Tajzadeh's wife, Fakhrosadat Mohtashamipour, told the pro-reform website Emruz that she and a lawyer had been denied access to him since his arrest the day after the 12 June election. "Any quote or remarks made by these people in the current situation has no credibility. My husband's only crime is his efforts to secure a high turnout," she said. Tajzadeh (53) a member of the pro-reform Islamic Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organisation, has been a staunch critic of Ahmadinejad. After the president was first elected four years ago, Tajzadeh told the Guardian that Ahmadinejad's leading supporters wanted to create an atmosphere similar to that under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Renewed fears have been voiced over the health of another jailed reformist, Saeed Hajarian, a former Khatami adviser who is severely disabled from a failed assassination attempt nine years ago. Reports of Hajarian's death on blogs and Twitter were dismissed by the reformist website Parlemannews, which quoted "informed sources" as saying he was in "relative health" and being given essential medication and care. Meanwhile, state TV reported that the head of Mousavi's information committee, Abolfazl Fateh, had been prevented from leaving Iran for Britain, where he is a PhD student. Fars, a pro-Ahmadinejad news agency close to the country's Revolutionary Guard, said he had been banned from travelling to allow the authorities to investigate "recent gatherings", a reference to the pro-Mousavi demonstrations. |
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| Iran: Cancel Televised Confessions | |
| 2007-07-19 | |
Bill used this as a example of the hypocrisy in the U.S. Media and others who purport to worry about Human Rights. Where is the outrage? These are Americans. One of Bill's co-workers stated that the difference between these people being held against their will, is that there are only 2 instead of 5. Actually according to this story, there are 4 in all. How often do you see this story even mentioned in the newspaper..radio...television? Curiously, I can't remember hearing this from any of the presidential candidates on either side of the aisle. (New York, July 18, 2007) The Iranian government should cancel the scheduled July 18 broadcast of the confessions of two detained Iranian-Americans, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch expressed concern that Iranian authorities have used coercive means to compel Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh to make statements that may be later used to incriminate them in court. On July 16, 2007, Iranian television announced that Channel One would broadcast the confessions of Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh at 9:45 p.m. on July 18 and July 19. The authorities have held them in largely incommunicado detention for more than two months, preventing lawyers and family members from visiting them. They have only been permitted brief phone calls to family members. Public confessions of this kind are a shameful tactic used by oppressive governments around the world, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. Its a way for governments to intimidate critical voices into silence and flaunt their disregard for fundamental rights. Iranian television on July 16 ran an advertisement for a program, In the Name of Democracy, that showed Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh speaking about velvet revolutions. Canadian-Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, whom the authorities arrested in April 2006 and released after four months of detention once he had confessed that his scholarly work had contributed to the planning of a velvet revolution, is also featured in the video. Iran has accused Esfandiari, head of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and Tajbakhsh, a consultant for the Open Society Institute, of spying, planning the soft overthrow of the government, and acting against national security. Esfandiari, 67, has been in Tehrans Evin prison since May 8, 2007, when officials at the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence summoned her for questioning and then arrested her without warrant. Several days later, authorities arrested Tajbakhsh and detained him at Evin prison. Both have been held in solitary confinement. Esfandiaris lawyer, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, says that authorities have not allowed her to meet with her client or to examine her case files. Ebadi also said that Esfandiaris health was deteriorating as a result of the harsh conditions in prison. International human rights law protects detained persons from mistreatment, including making forced confessions. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, protects the right of every person [n]ot to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt. It is unlawful for authorities to use coercive means to obtain incriminating statements. Broadcasting such statements is a form of degrading treatment prohibited by international law. Two other Iranian-Americans, Parnaz Azima and Ali Shakeri, are also currently facing similar charges of acting against national security. Like Esfandiari, both were in Iran for family reasons. Authorities have detained Shakeri in Evin prison since May, around the same time that Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh were arrested. Shakeri serves on the Community Advisory Board of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine. He also belongs to a group that advocates for a secular and democratic Iran. Parnaz Azima, a reporter for the US-funded Radio Farda, is not currently in custody, but authorities have confiscated her passport and have barred her from leaving the country. She is currently out on a 510 million Toman (approximately US$540,000) bail. | |
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| Freed Iran writer blames US for his 'deviation' | ||||
| 2006-09-01 | ||||
An Iranian intellectual released after four months in jail has admitted he unknowingly acted against national security interests after being manipulated by US organisations, the ISNA agency reported Thursday. "I accepted acting against national security through having contacts with foreigners, but I did not do it intentionally and knowingly," Ramin Jahanbegloo told the agency, hours after his release on bail Wednesday.
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| Iran blasts EU 'meddling' over detained intellectual |
| 2006-07-14 |
| TEHRAN: Iran accused the European Union on Thursday of "meddling" in its internal affairs by demanding that a detained intellectual accused of trying to undermine the government be given access to a lawyer. "The incoherent views and unusual sensitivity over the arrest of an Iranian is surprising and questionable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in response to EU pressure over the case of Ramin Jahanbegloo. Asefi said a statement issued on Monday by Finland, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, amounts to "meddling in Iran's domestic affairs." "We advise the Europeans to focus their concerns on the violation of human rights in Europe and the crisis in Palestine," he added. Jahanbegloo, a prominent thinker and writer on democracy and non-violence who has a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris, was arrested in early May while trying to leave Iran to attend a conference in Brussels. "The EU is particularly alarmed about the continuing detention of ... Ramin Jahanbegloo, who is well known for his commitment to philosophical and moral principles, non-violence and dialogue," the EU's statement said. It also pointed to "the inherent unreliability of confessions made in prison without adequate legal safeguards," and called on the Iranian authorities to allow Jahanbegloo "immediate access to legal counsel." |
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