About 100 protesters arrested for their involvement in post-election violence were put on trial today. The defendants included supporters of reformist opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and aides of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami. The Tehran Times reported that according to the indictment, a number of protesters confessed that the post-election unrest was preplanned and they were trying to implement a velvet revolution. Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari is reported as confessing that Western media outlets intentionally promoted the idea of the possibility of vote fraud before the election. Maziar Bahari was one of the people interviewed as a part of the Daily Show’s pre-election coverage in Iran: Jason Jones: Behind the Veil – Persians of Interest.
Furthermore, a leading Reformist, Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, who served as a deputy under Khatami, has allegedly charged Ayatollah Rafsanjani of seeking to avenge his 2005 presidential defeat to Ahmadinejad in the 2009 election. Abtahi accused Rafsanjani, Mousavi, and Khatami of having taken an “oath” not to abandon each other as they prepared to stage a “Velvet Revolution”. Abtahi was also interviewed in the Daily Show’s pre-election coverage in Iran: Jason Jones: Behind the Veil – Persians of Interest. Rafsanjani has questioned the legitimacy of confessions made in the courtroom.
Photo taken from the Fars News Agency.
