A die-hard hero of Iran's reform movement, Saeed Hajjarian, had a confession read for him today in the fourth installment of the ghastly show trials currently underway in Iran. Hajjarian was one of the students who took over the United States Embassy in 1979 and who went on to be one of the architects of the reform movement and a deputy intelligence minister. Now he sits in a wheelchair after suffering severe brain and spinal cord damage caused by an assassination attempt carried out by hardliners in 2000. He requires constant medical care yet has been jailed in deplorable conditions for months.
The stunning confession was among the most dramatic in the trial of more than 100 reform leaders and protesters arrested in Iran's post-election crackdown — testimony the opposition says was coerced by threats and mistreatment during weeks of solitary confinement
A top architect of the reform movement, Hajjarian was a senior aide to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, helping to design a program of social and political liberalization during Khatami's 1997-2005 administration — policies that were ultimately stymied by hard-line clerics who dominate Iran's Islamic republic system.
The opposition has compared the proceedings to Josef Stalin's "show trials" against his opponents in the Soviet Union, saying the government is trying to wipe out the reform movement.
Hajjarian's turn in court perhaps more resembled a scene from China's Cultural Revolution, as he repented of the pro-reform ideology he has espoused for years.
In a statement read by a fellow defendant, he confessed to trying to spread "Marxist thought" that "has no relation to Iran." He said he had led astray his political party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, with his ideas and announced his resignation from the party.
He threw his support behind Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose rule "springs from the rule of the Prophet Muhammad."
The Islamic Iran Participation Front issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the confessions should not be believed. "What is uttered from their tongue today is not by their will," the statement read.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
A Grim Spectacle.
It was, as it was surely intended to be, a grim spectacle.
Iranian state television showed the defendants - sitting in rows in a courtroom in Tehran, dressed in pyjama-like prison uniforms - as they confessed to taking part in a plot to undermine the Islamic Republic.
They included some of the country's most prominent reformist intellectuals. Many looked tired and nervous in front of the cameras.
Prosecutors have called for the outlawing of two of the main reformist parties.
Prosecutors have called for two of the main reformist parties - the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahidin Organisation - to be outlawed.
Both flourished during the Khatami presidency (1997-2005) when, for a while, it seemed the reformist trend was unstoppable.
If these two parties are shut down, that will send an unmistakable message to the newest incarnation of reform in Iran - the Green movement that emerged to protest at the 12 June elections.
(The hardliners are) signalling that if the Green movement persists with its protests, it too will be crushed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
One dude, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, showing mad defiance, a gigantic heart and bravery measured in moon units refused to cave into this despicable, farcical show trial and held true to his beliefs.
"As a reformer, my position is clear," said Ramezanzadeh, a prominent figure in Hajjarian's party. "I've put forward my views in my speeches and I won't change my views."
http://www.google.com/...
Mad props to Mr. Ramezanzadeh.
moon