Iran holds mass trial for protesters
Iranian authorities are beginning a mass trial of more than 100 members of the “green” opposition who were found protesting the results of the recent presidential election. This trial comes just days before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for his second term as president.
The protesters are facing trail for “conspiring with foreign powers to stage a revolution through terrorism,” The New York Times reports. The former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has voiced his criticism of the trials, calling them “show” trials, and saying he hoped they would not “lead to ignorance of the real crimes.”
The opposition leader, Mir Mousavi, will not be tried in these proceedings and has urged his followers to resume their chants of “God is Great” to protest the trials.
A number of the charges are the result of a confession by reformist cleric and blogger Muhammad Ali Abtahi. In an emotional videotaped confession Abtahi said the elections weren’t fraudulent and that the three opposition leaders “promised to always back each other up.” Some are now touting this statement as proof of the opposition’s malign intent. But human-rights leaders say this confession was most likely forced out of Abtahi.