The Latest from Iran (2 August): Assessing the Trial

NEW Trials in Iran: The Latest from Mousavi
Latest Iran Video: The Abtahi "Confession" (2 August)
NEW Iran: Putting the Opposition on Trial

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2045 GMT: According to Mowj-e-Sabz, "principlist" members of Parliament have been warned not to criticise televised confessions.

1650 GMT: Muhammad Sahimi at Tehran Bureau offers a thorough summary and analysis of yesterday's proceedings. The article is particularly effective in depicting the prosecution's attempt to turn the trial into a demolition of opposition groups by linking them to "foreign agents" and, parallelling our own interpretation, exposing the lack of evidence for these assertions.

1630 GMT: Our correspondent Mani has  noted the statement of former Vice President Dr Ebrahim Yazdi, who was detained earlier in the post-election conflict:

We must ask: what has happened in the Islamic Republic of Iran, that prominent Iranians who have served as consultants, presidents, prime ministers, ministers, ambassadors and deputy prime ministers are now according to the prosecutor's claim ready to conspire with foreign powers to overthrow the Islamic Republic? The claim of the perseution is an attack and challenge to the integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last 30 years. [Mani's comment: "This challenge is exactly what Rafsanjani means when he refers to 'the cost of questioning the foundations of the establishment'."]

This trial is a symbol of the existence of internal fighting in the Iranian government and has no goal other then the dominance of one part of the power structure over the others. The ones who are running this trial will be forced by public opinion to scuttle it.....Shia theological tradition explicitly states that coerced confessions from an imprisoned person is absolutely immoral and is against the foundations of islamic law and is therefore illegal.

1615 GMT: Best Line So Far on the Tehran Trial. Mir Hossein Mousavi says the proceedings were "sufficiently ridiculous to make a baked tukey laugh".

1600 GMT: We wrote today, in a separate analysis, about the attempt to use the Tehran trial to portray Hashemi Rafsanjani as an enemy of the regime and of Rafsanjani's response via his leadership of the Expediency Council. A bit more on the Rafsanjani statement:

Besides calling the charges, as laid out in the testimony of Mohammad Ali Abtahi, "absolutely false", the Expediency Council's communiqué said,  "In a meeting that happened after one of the deliberations of the Expediency Discernment Counci, Mr. Khatami postponed declaring his official postion until he had a meeting with his party the 'Association of Combatant Clerics'. Mr. Mousavi had already declared his position, and Mr. Rafsanjani had insisted upon all individuals following all legalities when they declare their postions or state their demand."

Therefore, Rafsanjani "has not supported any of the candidates and he has had no hand in the post-election events, and his opinion about resolving the current untoward conditions has not changed since his sermon in the Friday prayers 15 days ago." The statement ends by turning the allegations in the trial back against Rafsanjani's opponents, "God willing, all of us are not prone to appease a certain faction with statements and extraction of confessions at the cost of questioning the foundations of the establishment."

1555 GMT: The opposition website Mowj-e-Sabz has more on the Khatami statement, and this extract stands out. The former President is making an appeal to key members of the system to break from the politics of prosecution:

I do not think that Ayatollah Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, agrees with this trend [in the court], especially now that all the people are expecting the judiciary to act against the terible abuses against the detainees that has happened during the arrests and in many prisons,...especially since the supreme leader has ordered a serious response to these issues.

1530 GMT: More Reaction to the Trial. Mohammad Khatami, via his website, has said:

The trial on Saturday was a show and the confessions are invalid ... What was called a trial was a violation of the constitution. Such show trials will directly harm the system and will further damage public trust. These confessions have been taken under extraordinary conditions. The detainees were not informed in advance about the court session and lacked access to lawyers.

1510 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi’s close aides, Alireza Beheshti has stated that the Mousavi campaign has gathered the names of 1700 detainees whose whereabouts are unknown.

Afternoon Update (1440 GMT): Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Ahmadinejad's press secretary, has resigned from his post. Javanfekr stated that " there is a need for fresh blood to take over the responsibility,  and one must make way for these individuals".

The Islamic Iran Participation Front, one of the reformist parties has responded to the trials via its news site Norouz:

The show goes on: Wholesale killings and suppressions, wholesale arrests and wholesale trial and sentencing. The trial of the political activists arrested after the presidential elestions has started. As it could have been expected and just as political activists and parties had warned the trial was held eschewing all legal presuppositions favoring the defendants.

The sole reporting news agency in the court was the pro-government and mendacious Fars news agency. Considering the track record of this agency in propagating falsehoods, it is obvious that none of the statements of this agency possess any credibility.

Norouz states that a credible source located in the court has stated that none of the statements of Fars are true and the court is effectively a kangaroo court.

Iran Special Analysis: The Politics of the Tehran Trial

The Latest from Iran (2 August): Assessing the Trial

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Saturday, for the first day in recent weeks, it was the regime on the offensive. Ayatollah Jannati's tough address at Friday prayers in Tehran was followed by the showpiece of the trial of almost 100 defendants, including a former Vice President and Deputy Ministers, key members of reformist political parties, and journalists.

As legal process, the courtroom scene was, to be frank, ludicrous. There were no defense lawyers, and the only official press in the courtroom were those from media favourable to the State.

The indictment and presentation of charges offered no evidence of substantive criminal acts apart from the relatively minor acts of throwing stones at security forces. More sinister allegations of bombing relied upon the past, rather the current, records of defendants (and did not include any of the most prominent detainees). And the "foreign plot" scenario was almost laughable. It turned US-based academics into directors of an Iranian insurgency. (Abbas Milani has no love for the regime, but he is a solid historian and political analyst, and Gene Sharp works with theory, rather than application, of non-violent regime change. Mark Palmer may be an irritating polemicist, but he is not a CIA mastermind.)

The central act of the prosecution's play was the testimony of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. While dramatic in its content, it offered no detail of a treasonous plot. Instead, this was blatant political manoeuvre, designed to stigmatise Mohammad Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavai (although he was portrayed as naïve campaigner rather than malevolent schemer), and, above all, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Only Abtahi knows whether his testimony was genuine or coerced. His family and attorney declared that he had been tortured and drugged. Pictures from the courtroom showed a man who looked haggard and unhealthy, losing a lot of weight in his detention. His "confession" had apparently been circulated in advance to news services that would give it the correct interpretation.

Opposition politicians denounced both the trial and Abtahi's suspect testimony. Mousavi's camp declared, via Ghalam News, "The people's movement is peaceful in nature and relies on the demand of the public to achieve their rights which have been trampled upon during the last elections." They specifically ruled out the allegation of conspiracy with foreign agents, responding not only to the trial but some unhelpful calls from outside Iran for regime change: "Despite claims of the dissidents, this just and spiritual movement has no connections with the foreigners and is completely domestic, and our nation is mindful of staying away from foreigners."

Rafsanjani was briefer in his response, calling the testimony "an obvious lie". Significantly, however, his advisors issued the statement through the offices of the Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani heads. The message to the regime? If you want a fight, we have our own bases of support within the system.

What matters in the short-term is not the cold dissection of yesterday's events but the emotive reaction. Will the regime succeed, days before the anointing of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President, in mobilising public opinion against the opposition or at least ensuring acceptance of its authority? Or is this another instance of going too far in trying to crush protest as illegitimate?

The challenge for the regime is that it cannot sustain the high-profile denunciation on a daily basis. It has played its strongest card with Abtahi. Meanwhile, the opposition is countering. A show of dissent was scheduled for this morning outside the offices of the head of Iran's judiciary, and there is talk of protests not only for Wednesday, when Ahmadinejad is inaugurated, but also Monday, when he is approved by the Supreme Leader, and Friday, a day of celebration for Imam Mahdi's birthday.

It is one thing to crush a reformist faction like the Islamic Iran Participation Front, whose leading members are on trial. It is another to take on both the Green movement and Rafsanjani by linking them so blatantly (and, I think, crudely).

The regime may "win" but, to do so, it is gambling. And far from cleaning up the resistance with an easy bet, it is having to raise the stakes.

1440 GMT: Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Ahmadinejad's press secretary, has resigned from his post. Javanfekr stated that " there is a need for fresh blood to take over the responsibility,  and one must make way for these individuals".

http://parlemannews.com/?n=2376

The Islamic Participation Front, one of the reformist parties has responded to the trials via its news site Norouz:

"The show goes on: Wholesale killings and suppressions, wholesale arrests and wholesale trial and sentencing. The trial of the political activists arrested after the presidential elestions has started. As it could have been expected and just as political activists and parties had warned the trial was held eschewing all legal presuppositions favoring the defendants. The Islamic Participation Front states that the sole reporting news agency in the court was the pro-government and mendacious Fars news agency. Considering the track record of this agency in propagating falsehoods, it is obvious that none of the statements of this agency possess any credibility.

Nourouz states that a credible source located in the court has stated that none of the statements of Fars are true and the court is effectively a kangaroo court.

The Latest from Iran (1 August): The Regime Gets Tough

NEW Iran: Interpreting Ayatollah Jannati’s Challenge at Friday Prayers
The Latest from Iran (31 July): And Now….?

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1340 GMT: The "reformist" Parliamentary group Imam Khomeini Line has denounced today's events as a "so-called trial".

1330 GMT: Fars News Agency has published the "confession" of former Vice President Abtahi; this differs somewhat from the version reported out of the trial (see 1210 GMT). This may be because Fars had an advance "script" of Abtahi's testimony.

1210 GMT: Blaming Hashemi. And now to the political point of today's proceedings. Take note of how the "confession" of former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, as described by Fars News, is set out to tie former President Rafsanjani into the "plot" of the opposition:

After the election [Mohammad] Khatami and Rafsanjani had sworn to have each other's back, and I don't understand the point of it, knowing the diference [in votes between Ahmadienjad and Mousavi] was 11 million....Hashemi wanted to take revange on Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader....

Mousavi probably did not know the country, but Khatami, with all due respect... knew all the issues. He was aware of the capability and power of the leader, but he joined Mousavi and this was a betrayal,...I see myself as a reformist but stated that Khatami did not have the right to force [this] on Mousavi. I did not agree with Ahmadinejad's presidency but believe in people's votes, and congratulated as people's choice as  the president.

It was wrong of me to take part in the rallies, but [Mehdi] Karroubi told me that we cannot call the people onto the streets with such a meagre number of votes, so we had better go to the streets ourselves to demonstrate our protest.

But, if Rafsanjani is the chief villain, Iran can thank its ultimate hero:

If the Supreme Leader would have backed up even a bit, today Iran's distress would have gone as far as that in Afghanistan and Pakistan; therefore people should thank the supreme leader for his moves. I am telling all friends and all that hear our voices to know the election matter was a lie to make an excuse for riots so Iran would have changed to another Iraq and Afghanistan so [the opposition] could hurt the regime and take over.

1140 GMT: How Serious is that "Foreign Plot"? Well, Mark Palmer is far from a covert practitioner of regime change: he is the author of Breaking the Axis of Evil, which "has the gumption to argue what diplomats and political leaders dare not speak: that global peace with not be achieved until democracies replace the world's remaining dictatorships". A former State Department official, he advocated the invasion of Iraq well before March 2003, and he is now with the American Enterprise Institute.

Abbas Milani is also not very secretive: he is one of the most prominent US-based analysts of Iran. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, another "conservative" think tank (one of its most notable associates is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). While critical of the Iranian system, Milani has not advocated "regime change".

And Gene Sharp, singled out in the prosecution's indictment (see 0938 GMT), is an academic who has written for decades "on the strategic uses of nonviolent struggle in face of dictatorship, war, genocide, and oppression". A long-time fellow at Harvard University, the "instructions" cited in the indictment are not direct orders to the defendants (unless the prosecution has some dramatic evidence that Sharp has ever met any of them) but a reference to the general theories and analysis in his books.

Put bluntly, if this is a "foreign plot", as the Iranian prosecutors allege, it's a very poorly-designed one indeed, given that it took me five minutes to assemble the above information.

1105 GMT: Finding the Foreign Agents. This from the prosecution's opening statement:

Some people like "Mark Palmer", President of "Konos Institute" have carried out much research on Iran and formed classed two or three years ago, to which they invited reformists like Emad Baqi to train them in "soft overthrow" of the Government.

There is a institute in US which is called "Hoover", and one of its member is Abbas Milani. His value to CIA is more than Reza Pahlavi [the son of the Shah] because of his good relationship with reformists and some members of the Kargozaran Party especially Mohammad Atrianfar. The institute has a project called "Democracy in Iran", and also Milani covers all of Akbar Ganji's financial costs overseas.

1100 GMT: This trial is clearly an effort to break the "reformist" Islamic Iran Participation Front, with several of its high-ranking officials amongs the defendants. In addition to those listed in earlier entries, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the Vice President of the IIPF, is on trial.

1040 GMT: Sea of Green Radio is dedicating itself to establishing and publicising the death toll in post-election conflict: "Any failure to hold Iranian authorities to account has one key consequence: it extends to repressive forces in Iran a licence to continue to kill without fear that the full scale of these murders will be exposed." Today it interviews the author of Iran Revolution, a blog pursuing an up-to-date confirmation of casualties.

1010 GMT: Other defendants include Mohsen Mirdamadi, General Secretary of  the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Mohsen Aminzadeh, a founding member of the Islamic Participation Front and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Khatami, and journalist Mohammad Atrianfar.

1000 GMT: Summary of prosecutor's introduction of defendants:

"What we have seen is a part of an unsuccessful velvet coup d'etat. Many arrestees have been previously arrested for being with Monafeghin [anti-Iranian terrorists]", including involvements in bombings. Others have travelled to Iraq to meet American troops and have sent American authorities videos of their plans for bombings. "Emad Behavar [leader of the youth wing of the Freedom Party] was an activist in Mousavi's campaigns, which was making film and distributing them to others in Iran....They betrayed their country by sending footage out to foreign media to change the image of Iran." One defendant is accused of destroying banks and other public property.

0938 GMT: From Revolutionary Road, who is live-blogging from the first trials of the detainees, the text of the indictment:

Every fair man can easily see the big achievement of this great epic [election] in the political, cultural, social, and economic fields at national and international levels.

Firstly, this election converted into real democratic pride and performance, with a message to people around the world, that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most secure and stable countries in the world for investment and progress in economic projects.

Secondly, in the field of international relations, this great national election contributed to the achievement of the full realization of peoples' rights. Therefore, there in no place for false claimants of freedom, democracy. and human rights [to challenge this]. From now on, Iranian diplomats and statesmen can do their roles better than ever in the world.

Thirdly, the profound effect of this election was that, more than ever, the national public realized that the pattern of religious democracy is efficient.

Fourth, since the support of the people is one of the most important components in national security to the holy Islamic Republic, the 85 percent turnout iof people in this election stabilised the national security and will help Iran in its domestic and foreign problems.

But as the supreme leader Ali Khamenei had warned people about enemies and their malicious intrigues, the losers and hopeless enemies immediately started to turn this victory into bitterness for the Iranian nation. According to available documents and evidence and the reasonable confessions of the accused, this was a pre-designed and scheduled velvet coup. More than 100 of 198 instructions of "Gene Sharp" for velvet coup have been carried out.

0925 GMT: The Battle Amongst the Clerics. Picking up on some news from yesterday: the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qom, a "reformist" group, issued a statement asking protesters to continue. The Association asserted, "Grand Ayatollahs are worried and disappointed by the recent developments ,and what the
Friday prayer leader [Ayatollah Jannati] says in the Friday sermon does not reflect thoughts and beliefs of the Grand Ayatollahs and the professors and teachers in the seminaries and the Hawzahs [schools of clerical learning and interpretation]."

0845 GMT: Fars News Agency has posted a series of pictures from the trials. There is no update on the proceedings.

0600 GMT: Iranian state media are reporting that the first trials of demonstrators in the post-election conflicts have begun. It is unclear how many are being tried, but the estimates of 30 to 100 are greater than the original figure of 20 put out this week. The charges of rioting and vandalism seem relatively minor; the catch-all and more ominous allegation are "acting against national security" and "having ties with counter-revolutionary groups".

Fars News says that the trials began in "chaos and turbulence" at 9:10 a.m. local time (0440 GMT). There are "nearly 100" defendants, including former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Behzad Nabavi, former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, and former Deputy Ministry of Economy Mohsen Safai-Farahani.

Kurdish officials in Iraq said last night that three American tourists have been detained by Iranian security forces after they strayed across the border during a mountain hike.

Iran: Ayatollah Jannati's Challenge at Friday Prayers (Rafsanjani, We're Watching You)

The Latest from Iran (1 August): The Regime Gets Tough

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Less than 24 hours after the "40th Day" memorial demonstrations, the regime offered its response through Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati's address at Friday prayers in Tehran. The message was far from subtle, but for some it may be surprising.

Right now, those supporting the Government do not see the protestors as the main threat. The challenge does not come from the leaders of that movement, such as Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi, or Mohammad Khatami. It is not even in the statements of senior clerics from Qom.

The man they fear is former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

On reflection, this may always have been the case. A week after the election, in his address at Friday prayers, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave nothing to the Green opposition. However, he devoted much attention to Rafsanjani, offering conciliatory words over the verbal fighting before the election (especially over "corruption") but concluding that he preferred the political views of President Ahmadinejad.

The difference yesterday was that Jannati did not extend any hand of compromise to Rafsanjani. Instead, he cast him as the shadow behind the post-election conflict, "an unrest four years in the making". That reference to the 2005 election, in which Ahmadinejad defeated Rafsanjani in the second round, could not have been clearer. (Even Press TV English is openly framing this as a showdown allegation against the former President.) Jannati charged, "After defeat was inflicted on a certain figure four years ago, those who could not stand a young man in power colluded against him. Since then, they have planned to avenge (their loss)."

The "young man" reference deserves special attention. As sharper analysts of Iran have noted, there is a wider battle here between politicians and clerics who emerged in the early years of the Revolution, including Rafsanjani and Mousavi, and a "new guard" including Ahmadinejad. In 2005 the Supreme Leader, despite having gained his position in 1989 in large part because of Rafsanjani's manoeuvring, backed the "young man" in what was widely seen as a political upset.

The shifting alliances --- Rafsanjani now finds himself on the same side as Ayatollah Montazeri, the clerical leader ousted in favour of Khamenei in 1989 --- do not replace the challenge on the streets. Jannati noted this yesterday when he warned opposition leaders, ""You were behind these unrests. You are responsible for the bloodshed… Now you go to their graves and offer prayers? Sooner or later, you will be punished for your unlawful acts."

However, since Rafsanjani chose to make his challenge public when he led prayers on 17 July, it is his specific threat that has galvanised supporters of the current regime. It is no coincidence that Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council, is also one of the key figures behind the letter --- signed by 16 of the 86 members of the Assembly of Experts --- that tried to remove Rafsanjani as chairman of that body. And a contributing factor to his address was the reaction from other members of the Assembly, who sharply rebuked him and others for claiming a widespread mandate for the letter --- Jannati directly responded by claiming that while many members scattered around the country could not sign, they of course were fully supportive of the contents.

So the regime turns its eyes upon and points its fingers at Rafsanjani, waiting for his response. That still leaves intriguing questions, four days before the Presidential inauguration: if Rafsanjani is willing to compromise by promising no long-term challenge to the Supreme Leader and the system, will Jannati and his colleagues, including Khamenei, sacrifice Ahmadinejad? And, as the first trials of detainees begin today, with hundreds (how many hundreds?) languishing in prison, will the regime risk saying, "We were wrong", by giving in to the primary demand --- a demand not only of the Green opposition but of Rafsanjani and other political and clerical figures within the system --- to release and apologise to those who were taken off the streets and from their homes?