Iran: How the Government Created a Rafsanjani-Led "Conspiracy" with Wiretaps (Ghazi)

Last week we noted a remarkable article in Rooz Online by Fereshteh Ghazi about a 110-page report from the Revolutionary Guard, ordered by President Ahmadinejad in summer 2009 and approved by the Supreme National Security Council in March 2010. The document outlined a "conspiracy", using the June 2009 Presidential elections, to topple the Government and remove the Supreme Leader. The "evidence" included lengthy extracts of statements obtained by surveillance and wiretapping.

This English version of Ghazi's report does not have the extracts, but it is still a dramatic testament to how far the Government will go to defend the Ahmadinejad "victory" of 2009 and to tarnish the opposition. Indeed, there are important lessons even beyond Ghazi's account.

1. Notice how the "head of the conspiracy", and thus the main foe of the Government, is not Mir Hossein Mousavi or Mehdi Karroubi but Hashemi Rafsanjani.

2. This report confirms --- inadvertently, of course --- the Government's recent attempt to manufacture a private but on-camera admission by reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, detained for months in Evin Prison, that the opposition knew it had lost the 2009 election.

The video of that "admission" was obtained through the surveillance outlined in the report, but the document, far from being able to establish Tajzadeh's revelation of defeat, notes that he remains "defiant" about the Government's electoral coup in June 2009.

While the Islamic republic officials and state-run media have remained silence in response to the leaking of a Supreme National Security Council report prepared by senior officers at the ministry of intelligence, state security forces and the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Rooz has obtained new details about the report.

According to the information obtained by Rooz, the 110-page report, parts of which were revealed in a speech last fall by Commander Moshfegh in Mashhad, was delivered to the Supreme National Security Council last March after the IRGC concluded interrogating political prisoners in its notorious ward A [in Tehran's Evin Prison]. 

The information obtained by Rooz indicates that the report, titled, “Examination and Analysis of the Organization and Structure of the 1388 [2009] Conspiracy”, was prepared at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s request last summer and approved by the Supreme National Security Council. The date is important because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replaced the-then intelligence minister Mohseni-Ejei last summer...as protests against the presidential election were ongoing. 

The report was first published by Rooz last Thursday and republished by the website Norooz shortly after. It identifies Hashemi Rafsanjani as the head of the conspiracy followed by seyyed Mohammad Khatami, Mousavi-Khoiniha and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It characterizes the events surrounding the election as a “preplanned political plot to topple the country’s executive management and change certain of the regime’s principles and foundations through circumvention of the law and the Supreme Leader and using all domestic and foreign resources, including causing disturbance.”

But on what evidence were these conclusions based? The report relies on information gathered from “wiretapping, interrogation sessions and the intelligence ministry’s internal bulletins,” which have been widely disseminated in among the regime’s senior officials. This is a significant development as the Islamic republic officials have consistently denied “wiretapping”, while many political prisoners have claimed that they their confessions were forcefully extracted under torture and pressure. 

A review of the information gathered from interrogation sessions reveals, however, that Mostafa Tajzadeh remained defiant and called for [head of the Guardian Council] Ayatollah Jannati’s prosecution at his interrogation session. 

The report contains references to statements gathered through wiretapping not only in 1388 [2009/2010] but also in 1387 [2008/20099. Relying on short sentences uttered by political figures, the report concludes that the “conspiracy movement” sought to “eliminate the Supreme Leader and his position, eliminate Ahmadinejad at any cost, return to power, and limit the Supreme Leader’s power". 

In effect, the entire body of evidence that supports the lengthy report about the so-called conspiracy movement is composed of statements from political prisoners’ interrogation sessions at Evin Prison’s Ward A, which is under the control of the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), or of private statements from prominent reformist figures, journalists and politicians obtained through wiretapping.