Trial confessions condemned as forced lies

Kian Tajbakhsh

Mohammad Khatami, Mehdi Hashemi and the Islamic Azad University denied the accusations aimed at them in the fourth mass trial of post-election protesters in Iran. In yesterday's trial in Tehran, prominent reformists and political activists as well as reporters recanted their claims of fraud in the tenth presidential elections and some confessed to collaborating with other influential political figures in orchestrating a “velvet coup.”

Kian Tajbakhsh testified that Khatami met with George Soros in 1996. Khatami firmly denied this accusation and called it a “sheer lie.”

Iran regards Soros, the founder of the Open Society Institute, one of the chief architects of the “colour revolutions” around the world. The Revolutionary Guards claim that in the post-election unrest they managed to stop a similar kind of “velvet revolution” which the defendants in these mass trials are accused of supporting.

Hamzeh Karami and Masoud Bastani who are also accused of supporting this “velvet coup” testified that Mehdi Hashemi, son of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Abdollah Josbi, head of Azad University were in charge of the reformist Jomhouriat website, a supporter of the Mousavi campaign in the recent presidential elections. Mousavi is the chief challenger of the election outcome.

Mehdi Hashemi denied having any connections with Jomhouriat. Azad University also announced that in the tenth presidential elections, the University did not endorse any candidates and none of its budget was used in any of the campaigns.

The trial was condemned by the Islamic Iran Participation Front as a “shameless show.” Reporters without Borders called the trial “a travesty of justice” and urged human rights groups to speak out against “this sad spectacle of confessions extracted under torture.”