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Iran to put 25 more vote protesters on trial
2009-08-15
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran will put on trial 25 more people arrested after the disputed result of the June presidential election, as fresh claims surfaced on Saturday that several protesters in jail were tortured to death. "The third session of the elements of recent riots in Tehran will be held on Sunday," a court statement carried by the ISNA news agency said. "In this session charges against 25 defendants... will be presented." Iran has already put on trial 110 people charged with protesting against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The defendants include top reformists, political activists, a French lecturer and two employees of the French and the British embassies. The trial of lecturer Clotilde Reiss has finished, although she remains in custody. Securing her release has been a diplomatic priority for Paris, with President Nicolas Sarkozy raising the case with other leaders. Opposition leaders have denounced the court proceedings as "show trials." The hearings have angered the international community and heightened political tensions as Iran battles its worst political crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad's June 12 re-election triggered massive street protests in Tehran by supporters of opposition leaders, and according to officials resulted in about 30 deaths. The opposition claims that 69 people were killed in the protests which rocked the pillars of the Islamic regime and have deeply divided the nation's clergy and ruling elites. Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi made fresh claims on Saturday that several protesters died in prisons after being tortured, beaten and made to crawl like animals. "Some youngsters who were chanting slogans were beaten in such a way that they lost their lives," Karroubi wrote in his newspaper Etemad Melli. The cleric said protesters were "tortured" in the Kahrizak detention centre, south of Tehran, before it was ordered closed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "I heard they (security forces) stripped people in Kahrizak and made them crawl like animals with prison guards riding on their backs," he said in a separate claim on the website of his political party, also called Etemad Melli. Karroubi said it was a "shame" the Islamic republic indulged in such tactics as "some of those arrested were forced to be naked and piled upon each other" in prison cells. Iranian MP Parviz Sorouri said a dozen police officials responsible for the Kahrizak incident have been dismissed, while action was being taken against the judge who sent protesters there. Officials have claimed that protesters who died in jail succumbed to a viral disease, not police beatings. Karroubi said his camp was ready to answer questions raised by his critics, and called on them to gather in front of his newspaper office later on Saturday. He also urged his supporters to gather on Monday at the same place where he would address them on his claims about prisoner abuses, his party website said. London-based rights organisation Amnesty International urged Khamenei to "act, and act now, to address the spiral of abuse." "What is needed is a root and branch investigation into the allegations of torture, including rape, and other abuses, and the Supreme Leader should invite international experts" to investigate, Amnesty secretary general Irene Khan said in London. The political turmoil has exposed even Khamenei to criticism for his unwavering backing for Ahmadinejad. Several opposition websites reported that a group of former MPs have written to the powerful Assembly of Experts which supervises the activities of the supreme leader, urging it to ask whether Khamenei was fit to lead the country. "The supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has responsibilities and he supervises all the three branches... we call upon you to act according to article 111 of the constitution," they said of a clause which calls for the supreme leader to be dismissed if he is found incapable of doing his duties. No Iranian news agency carried the statement by the ex-MPs which was the first such direct attack on Khamenei. Conservative cleric Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, meanwhile, urged the bitterly divided political groups to unite during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and focus on the country's "cultural and economic problems."
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