Iran resumes mass trial of activists, protesters

[August 08, 2009]  TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Dozens of opposition activists and protesters stood trial in Tehran Saturday on charges of rioting and plotting to topple the ruling Islamic system after the disputed presidential election, Iran's state media reported.

The mass trial in Tehran's Revolutionary Court demonstrates the government's resolve to discredit the pro-reform movement in one blow and bring an end to anti-government protests that have persisted since the June 12 election.

This is the second hearing in an extraordinary mass trial that started a week ago, although those standing trial Saturday were not the same defendants who attended the court last week. Saturday's session saw new faces, including several prominent reformist politicians as well a 23-year old French academic arrested in July. According to Iran's official news agency, IRNA, a local female staff member of the French Embassy in Tehran was also among the defendants.

Hossein Rassam, a local staff member of the British Embassy, also appeared. Rassam, a political analyst at the embassy, has been charged with espionage and "acting against national security," IRNA reported.

Britain's Foreign Office said the situation is unacceptable and "directly contradicts assurances we had been given repeatedly by senior Iranian officials." It said it will respond to "this latest outrage."

During the session, a prosecutor read out an indictment outlining what he said were plans by the U.S. and Britain to foment unrest in Iran with the aim of toppling the ruling Islamic system through a "soft overthrow," IRNA reported.

The vague indictment also accused the two powers of providing financial assistance to Iran's reformists to undermine hard-line clerics within the ruling system.

A reformist Web site said family members of the defendants and others gathered in front of the court to denounce the trial but were attacked by riot police and were forcibly dispersed. Further details were not provided.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched in days of street protests after the election, denouncing official results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran has tried to portray the protests as being led and encouraged by foreign powers, not fueled by internal dissent.

Among those standing trial is Clotilde Reiss, a 23-year-old French lecturer who was reportedly arrested at Tehran airport on July 1. Senior European Union diplomats have called on Iran to immediately release Reiss, who was jailed on charges of spying linked to the postelection unrest. France has called the charges "baseless."

A picture released by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency Saturday showed Reiss sitting in court in the front row, wearing a scarf over her head.

Iranian defendants included Ali Tajernia, a former reformist lawmaker; Shahaboddin Tabatabaei, a prominent leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's largest reformist political party; and Ahmad Zeidabadi, an outspoken journalist opposing hard-liners. All of them wore gray prison uniforms.

Also standing trial were some monarchists charged with "moharebeh," a term Iran uses to describe a major crime against Islam and the state. Defendants found guilty of moharebeh can be sentenced to death.

Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 37, admitted to the charge, saying he acted against the state.

Pictures on Iran's state-run English-language channel, Press TV, showed a large, wood-paneled room with rows of people and pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the late Iranian revolutionary patriarch who came to power with the overthrow of the pro-Western Shah in 1979 and established an anti-American Islamic republic, as well as his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran's reformist and moderate parties have denounced the mass trial, describing it as a "ridiculous show." The first session, held last Saturday, featured confessions from some of the defendants, though many human rights groups say such confessions are obtained under duress.

One of the most high-profile defendants during the first session was Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who was vice president from 2001 to 2004 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Abtahi has been one of the main leaders of the reform movement since the 1990s.

Among the others on trial last week were two foreign citizens - Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who holds Iranian and Canadian citizenship.

Bahari was quoted by Iranian news agencies as saying in the trial that Western media had attempted to guide events in Iran following the election.

Newsweek issued a statement that Bahari's work has "always been balanced and objective" with "fairness evident throughout his decade-long career."

Such a mass trial is unprecedented in Iran. Smaller-scale mass trials were held after the 1979 Iranian Revolution but usually in secret.

[Associated Press; By ALI AKBAR DAREINI]

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