Sunday
Aug092009
Iran Special Analysis: The Tehran "Foreign Plot" Trial as a Political Weapon
Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 11:42
The Latest from Iran (9 August): Once More on Trial
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The significance of the renewed Tehran trial, as with the initial hearings a week earlier, is not in the purported evidence; it is in the display that the regime is not going to compromise --- not yet, not as long as these proceedings persist, and possibly never, given the impact of this trial --- with much of the opposition.
Yesterday, another set of defendants were "introduced" with a description of the charges against them. They included the Frenchwoman Clotilde Reiss, Hossan Rassam, an Iranian employee of the British Embassy, Nazak Afshar, an Iranian employee of the French Embassy, and advisors to Mir Hossein Mousavi including former Member of Parliament Ali Tajernia, , Javad Emaam, the head of Mousavi's campaign office in Tehran, and Shahabeddin Tabatabaee, the national head of Mousavi's young supporters committee.
This, however, was just the rationale for prosecutor Abdolreza Mohabati to repeat the regime's standard allegation of a foreign-directed conspiracy:
The prosecutor accused the US of running an "exchange programme where members of the Iranian elite were sent to the United States for higher education....The programme aimed at changing views in Iranian society ... infiltrate the social layers, weaken Iran's government to eventually topple the regime. Voice of America radio and social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook also allegedly played a role in spreading the unrest.
This, of course, is why the Frenchwoman Reiss, a graduate student and assistant teacher at Isfahan University for five months, had a "starring" role yesterday. In the words of the Islamic Republic News Agency, she is "accused of collecting information and provoking rioters, and played an active role in the unrest by giving information to foreign embassies". She will be a face of the foreign plot for regime change, even if the testimony published in the state media points to a woman who, naively, took some photographs of the dramatic events that unfolded after the 12 June election and just before the end of her stay in Iran:
The rest of the Government's case is no stronger than it was last week, when it portrayed US-based academics as masterminds of the plan to topple the Islamic Republic. There was a "member of a terrorist group", Mohammd Reza Ali Zamani, speaking of the plans of the "Iran Kingdom Association", "We had received the formulas to make a strong bomb with the purpose of creating explosion and insecurity in Iran....We had the mission to attack and bombing some holy and crowded places." (Remember the state media's claim of a "suicide bomb attack" of Imam Khomeini's tomb in south Tehran during the demonstrations of 20 June, a claim which subsequently vanished?)
There was Reza Rafiee Foroushani, who supposedly was spying for the US and United Arab Emirates intelligence services. There were the plans to penetrate the Karoubi election campaign and to disrupt one of Mir Hossein Mousavi's lectures with a bombing (presumably blaming this on the Government or pro-Ahmadinejad forces). And above all of this was a devious American scheme, through an "exchange project", in which Iranian individuals and groups were brought to the USA "with exorbitant costs" and then reinstalled in bases Dubai, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Britain, and Germany to implement the "velvet revolution".
The point, of course, is not the prosecution's case which is, frankly, ludicrous, but the political assault launched through this trial. Having been on the defensive for most of the last month, the Government is clearly trying to re-establish authority, intimidating the opposition and shoring up support through the "foreign threat" narrative. The question, of course, is whether the tactic has more than short-term effect. Indeed, each step up in both public display and rhetoric also carries the risk that the Government's advantage turns into further difficulties, as concern and anger over detentions, abuse, and confessions builds. One analyst, Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, said, “It’s gone too far. You can’t treat a vice president[[Mohammad Ali Abtahi] in this manner, stripping him of his cloak. [He] is a mullah, an ayatollah, and on television we saw him in an ordinary shirt. That’s a big disrespect."
Mojtahed-Zadeh, who is far from a radical operative of the "velvet revolution" --- he is a professor at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran --- offers the advice, “Perhaps the regime would be wise enough to put some facade of legality on this, because these show trials are not acceptable in any way, by anyone.”
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
The significance of the renewed Tehran trial, as with the initial hearings a week earlier, is not in the purported evidence; it is in the display that the regime is not going to compromise --- not yet, not as long as these proceedings persist, and possibly never, given the impact of this trial --- with much of the opposition.Yesterday, another set of defendants were "introduced" with a description of the charges against them. They included the Frenchwoman Clotilde Reiss, Hossan Rassam, an Iranian employee of the British Embassy, Nazak Afshar, an Iranian employee of the French Embassy, and advisors to Mir Hossein Mousavi including former Member of Parliament Ali Tajernia, , Javad Emaam, the head of Mousavi's campaign office in Tehran, and Shahabeddin Tabatabaee, the national head of Mousavi's young supporters committee.
This, however, was just the rationale for prosecutor Abdolreza Mohabati to repeat the regime's standard allegation of a foreign-directed conspiracy:
Some British diplomats took part in illegal Tehran gatherings. The political section of the British embassy was collecting information about officials, the Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia....It formed a working group to monitor news and the local staffers and diplomats made provincial trips. The embassy also sent local staffers to scenes of unrest.
The prosecutor accused the US of running an "exchange programme where members of the Iranian elite were sent to the United States for higher education....The programme aimed at changing views in Iranian society ... infiltrate the social layers, weaken Iran's government to eventually topple the regime. Voice of America radio and social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook also allegedly played a role in spreading the unrest.
This, of course, is why the Frenchwoman Reiss, a graduate student and assistant teacher at Isfahan University for five months, had a "starring" role yesterday. In the words of the Islamic Republic News Agency, she is "accused of collecting information and provoking rioters, and played an active role in the unrest by giving information to foreign embassies". She will be a face of the foreign plot for regime change, even if the testimony published in the state media points to a woman who, naively, took some photographs of the dramatic events that unfolded after the 12 June election and just before the end of her stay in Iran:
I had written a one page report and submitted it to the cultural department of the French embassy. I was planning to leave Iran, but I took part in rallies of June 15 and 17 in Tehran and took photographs. I did this out of curiosity, and to be aware of the political situation.
The rest of the Government's case is no stronger than it was last week, when it portrayed US-based academics as masterminds of the plan to topple the Islamic Republic. There was a "member of a terrorist group", Mohammd Reza Ali Zamani, speaking of the plans of the "Iran Kingdom Association", "We had received the formulas to make a strong bomb with the purpose of creating explosion and insecurity in Iran....We had the mission to attack and bombing some holy and crowded places." (Remember the state media's claim of a "suicide bomb attack" of Imam Khomeini's tomb in south Tehran during the demonstrations of 20 June, a claim which subsequently vanished?)
There was Reza Rafiee Foroushani, who supposedly was spying for the US and United Arab Emirates intelligence services. There were the plans to penetrate the Karoubi election campaign and to disrupt one of Mir Hossein Mousavi's lectures with a bombing (presumably blaming this on the Government or pro-Ahmadinejad forces). And above all of this was a devious American scheme, through an "exchange project", in which Iranian individuals and groups were brought to the USA "with exorbitant costs" and then reinstalled in bases Dubai, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Britain, and Germany to implement the "velvet revolution".
The point, of course, is not the prosecution's case which is, frankly, ludicrous, but the political assault launched through this trial. Having been on the defensive for most of the last month, the Government is clearly trying to re-establish authority, intimidating the opposition and shoring up support through the "foreign threat" narrative. The question, of course, is whether the tactic has more than short-term effect. Indeed, each step up in both public display and rhetoric also carries the risk that the Government's advantage turns into further difficulties, as concern and anger over detentions, abuse, and confessions builds. One analyst, Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, said, “It’s gone too far. You can’t treat a vice president[[Mohammad Ali Abtahi] in this manner, stripping him of his cloak. [He] is a mullah, an ayatollah, and on television we saw him in an ordinary shirt. That’s a big disrespect."
Mojtahed-Zadeh, who is far from a radical operative of the "velvet revolution" --- he is a professor at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran --- offers the advice, “Perhaps the regime would be wise enough to put some facade of legality on this, because these show trials are not acceptable in any way, by anyone.”