The Tehran Trial: The Regime Goes After the Reformists AND Rafsanjani

The Latest from Iran (25 August): The Trials Resume

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We'll have a full analysis tomorrow after EA staff can consult on today's developments, but I am stunned. Before today, I had said that this trial would be an important signal: if the regime (read Ahmadinejad and Revolutionary Guard --- the Supreme Leader's position in all this is uncertain) had wanted compromise, then this would be a relatively low-profile occasion, having been delayed from last week; if it wanted confrontation, then it would put leading reformists like Saeed Hajjarian in the dock.

So when the regime played its first card today, prosecuting not only Hajjarian but all the leading reformist politicians and associates of former President Khatami, it threw down the challenge: We're Going to Break You.

Then, however, the Ahmadinejad wing of the Government had a surprise. It is now declaring that it is time for Hashemi Rafsanjani to go into his box and, more than a month after the dramatic Friday prayers that challenged the President, be quiet. Frankly, the allegations against Rafsanjani family members were so stunning that I did not trust my translation. But there is no mistake: as one of my EA colleagues predicted in late July, the regime would get at the former President by attacking his family.

Rafsanjani, it appears, wanted to use Ramadan to get some space for his manoeuvres, delaying the Assembly of Experts meeting and making his carefully-worded statement at the Expediency Council on Saturday. That space is now gone: he will have to react to today's events. As will, for that matter, the leaders of the Green movement: for all of Mehdi Karroubi's work in elevating the abuse of detainees issue and Mir Hosssein Mousavi's stumbling but still-present efforts for a Green Path of Hope, they now have to face a regime which wants to stop them through the punishment of the high-profile defendants who were in court today.

Iran: Text of Latest Karroubi Statement "You Will Not Force Me Into Silence"

The Latest from Iran (19 August): Challenges in Parliament and from Prisons

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Mehdi Karroubi has continued his campaign against the Government, particularly with regard to the treatment of detainees, with a new statement published in Saham News and, in a shorter version, in Aftab Yazd. This English translation should be read in conjunction with Karroubi's letter of 29 July to Hashemi Rafsanjani and his interview last week with Saham News:


Some individuals think that these insults and defamations [in response to Karroubi's letter claiming abuse of detainees] will force me to retreat. I advise these gentlemen to study history and observe that after the Revolution and at the end of the 3rd Parliament [1992] many people said whatever they could about me, including accusing me of embezzling funds and sending them out of the country. Who was the person who toughed it out?

In the last week I have been at the receiving end of many harsh attacks from MPs , IRIB [Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting], the media, and some clergymen. If this trend continues, I will say things that [those individuals] would prefer to remain unsaid....

After the 10th Presidential election [of 12 June] horrific events involving violence, lawlessness, irresponsibility by individuals having no official position interfering in the name of protecting the establishment, by paramillitary groups, and by plainclothes security forces have occurred in our country. These events are such that responsible, concerned. and informed individuals must set aside caution and self-preservation in order to do whatever they can in order to prevent a repetition of these events and destroy all the roots of such styles of confrontation....

In any part of the world it is possible that during demonstrations people get arrested, but I doubt that those arrested will be carted off to special locations and left to the mercies of their jailers. Here they are first transported to an unknown location such that even the head of the judiciary and the head prosecutor claim that the prisoners were not subjected to such treatment in official prisons under our jurisdiction....

All these events have occurred because the public are protesting the results of an election. Is this the correct way to treat people who are only want to know what was the fate of their votes?....Usually a protocol and regulations exist for obtaining confessions....The fact that such lawlessness has been observed in the methodolgies used for extraction confessions leads me to say that these confessions were extracted violently by ill-informed and unprudent and foolish individuals....

I am sorry to say that the SAVAK [security forces of the Shah] behaved in a more humane fashion than the individuals in charge of the recent arrests....

The head of this newspaper [Kayhan] that writes such lies about the children of the revolution is a near friend and colleague of Said Emami [a Deputy Minister of Intelligence who allegedly ordered the chain killing of intellectuals and dissidents in Tehran]...The head of Friday prayers who calls me a terrorist and anti-revolutionary is the same person who, during the Shah's time when all of us clergymen were persecuted, ran away to Pakistan to ostensibly do mission work for the Ayatollah....

Some of my friends in Parliament who have made statements against me should not forget that they have only gained their seats because [the Guardian Council] disqualified their rivals from running against them.... The reaction of some individuals in the armed forces towards me is to be expected because these individuals have amassed a huge amount of political and econonomic power, but they must also know that ideas are not limited or dependent to a few individuals and they diffuse into families as well. As indeed members of your own families have disagreements with you....

48 years ago in Mashaad, when the mosque of Goharshad incident occurred, a number of ignorant security forces [of the Shah] wanted to impede Imam Khomeini's movement with a campaign of misinformation, and they were thwarted by the truth leaking out....How can the officals expect anything to happen in Modern Tehran in the age of communications without anyone finding out?

You have now induced conditions so that no one dares to speak out, I reiterate to you that these behaviors and the atmosphere of fear that you have caused will not force me into silence and if there is a requirement I will state the relevent issues.