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"Confessions" of the Protesters

"Confessions" of the Protesters

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.

The Fars News Agency reported that some of the rioters arrested have also confessed their links to Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group that has been trying to overthrow the government of Iran.  According to a government official, these people confessed to receiving training in Camp Ashraf to conduct sabotage and terror operations and organized activities inside Iran.

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.

 

Author

Sahar Zubairy

Sahar Zubairy recently graduated from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas- Austin with Masters in Global Policy Studies. She graduated from Texas A&M University with Phi Beta Kappa honors in May 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. In Summer 2008, she was the Southwest Asia/Gulf Intern at the Henry L. Stimson Center, where she researched Iran and the Persian Gulf. She was also a member of a research team that helped develop a website investigating the possible effects of closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf by Iran.