Mullahs defy the West with mass show trial of Iran's poll protesters

MORE than 100 prominent moderates, some in handcuffs and prison uniforms, were yesterday put on trial on charges of trying to overthrow Iran's theocracy.

Islamic authorities had rounded up the defendants, who include former ministers, during the unrest that followed disputed June presidential elections. The country, in the hands of Muslim clerics since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has never before taken legal action against its former officials.

It has also never experienced the kind of popular discontent expressed in the days of rioting and mass protests that followed the re-election of radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Official Iranian news sources cited indictments that included charges of acting against national security by planning unrest, attacking military and state buildings and conspiring against the ruling system. The government-run news agency Irna also said some officials were being accused of having contact with British spies in the days following the elections.

Nine British embassy staff were arrested and accused of spying. All have been released.

The trials come ahead of the official inauguration of Ahmadinejad, due to take place on Wednesday. Western diplomats said they were designed to distract attention from internal squabbling in the regime.

Irna said in a terse statement: "The trial of some of those accused of being involved in post-election unrest has begun. Some 100 people were put on trial in a Tehran Revolutionary court." The moderates could now face the death penalty, which can be the punishment for acting against Iran's national security under the country's strict Islamic law.

State television in Tehran yesterday showed the courtroom with many young defendants. It also showed senior former officials, such as vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and former MP Mohsen Mirdamadi, paraded in prison uniforms.

Also on trial are prominent members of Iran's main moderate parties, founded by former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Both are backers of defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi. The indictment said: "These parties planned, organised and led the illegal gatherings and riots," Irna reported. "The Participation Front had contacts with a British spy," the agency added, referring to the main pro-reform party set up by Khatami.

Islamic Republic officials have portrayed Britain, the US and other nations as being the real force behind unrest, routinely blaming western media for encouraging rioting and vandalism and have cracked down on press freedoms.

At least 30 people died in the days of violence following the re-election of Ahmadinejad. Opposition groups believe the numbers are higher.

Clashes have continued, albeit on a smaller scale. They flared up again last week when crowds marked 40 days since the death of Neda Agha Soltan, a 27-year-old student who was shot as she watched protests on 20 June. "Neda," which means voice in Farsi, has become the rallying cry of Iranian protestors in recent weeks. Her dying moments were caught on video and broadcast on the internet.

State TV said police used tear gas to disperse crowds at Soltan's grave on Thursday.

The 12 June vote plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Human rights groups say hundreds of people, including reformist politicians, journalists and lawyers, have been detained since the election.

Leading moderates say the vote was rigged in favour of Ahmadinejad. The authorities deny this and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has endorsed Ahmadinejad's re-election. Hardline semi-official Fars news agency yesterday said: "Former vice-presidents Mohammad Ali Abtahi and Mohsen Safai-Farahani, former industries minister Behzad Nabavi, (Iranian-Canadian journalist] Maziar Bahari and former deputy interior minister Mostafa Tajzadeh have confessed that the issue of fraud in the Iran vote was baseless."

Bahari, who came to Iran to cover the vote for Newsweek, has said that he took cash from Britain's Channel Four television for footage of unrest, Fars said, adding he had told reporters that foreign media were involved. Fars also said detained Iranian photographers Majid Saeedi, who worked for Getty Images, and Satiar Emami had said they sold pictures of "riots" to British and French media.

Irna said Kian Tajbakhsh, a US citizen who in 2007 was accused of spying and detained for four months, was among those tried yesterday for being involved in the unrest. "The post-election developments were planned from a year ago by Americans," Tajbakhsh told Irna after the trial.

Iran last week released 140 detained protesters from Tehran's Evin prison. Another 250 others remain in jail.

Yesterday, Mousavi said the unrest had no link to foreign countries. His website said: "The protests since the election were not linked to foreigners at all ... Iranians' rights have been violated at the election."