IRAN’S POLICE chief admitted yesterday that protesters who were arrested after June’s disputed presidential election had been tortured while in custody in a prison in southwest Tehran. But he denied any of the detainees died as a result.
In remarks reported by state-run media, Gen Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said the chief of the Kahrizak detention centre had been dismissed and jailed.
“Three policemen who beat detainees have been jailed as well,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Gen Moghaddam as saying.
Human rights groups had previously identified at least three detainees whom they said had died after torture at Kahrizak, which was closed last month on the orders of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Gen Moghaddam denied the abuses were responsible for any fatalities there, claiming an unspecified “viral illness” had caused the deaths.
The general did not name those allegedly involved in the abuse of prisoners, or give details of the charges against them. But his admission has marked the second occasion in as many days that a senior official has accepted that some criticisms levelled at the regime are well-founded, suggesting growing doubts and uncertainty within the embattled regime nearly two months after the poll. On Saturday, Qorbanali Dori-Najafabadi, Iran’s prosecutor-general, conceded “mistakes” had led to “painful accidents which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished”.
He said the mistakes included “the Kahrizak incident”, an apparent reference to the deaths of detainees there.
Mr Dori-Najafabadi indicated the judiciary had taken overall charge of the detainees and their trials away from the feared Basiji militia and Revolutionary Guards.
He said about 200 people were still being held and urged people not to be afraid to come forward if they had complaints.
“Maybe there were cases of torture in the early days after the election but we are willing to follow up any complaints or irregularities that have taken place,” he was quoted as saying.
There have been widespread opposition claims of torture and abuse of the hundreds of anti-government demonstrators, politicians, journalists and academics arrested since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the June election. Until now, officials had rejected the torture claims.
Despite Mr Dori-Najafabadi’s assurances, Iranian websites reported that relatives and supporters who gathered outside a court in Tehran during the latest mass trial of opposition protesters on Saturday were attacked by riot police when they began chanting slogans. Saturday’s proceedings, condemned as a “show trial” by opposition factions, involved more than 100 people accused of trying to overthrow the Islamic republic.
Among those in the dock was Clotilde Reiss, a French researcher who was working at Isfahan University at the time of the elections and had allegedly passed information about the protests to the French embassy in Tehran. Also among the accused was an Iranian citizen, Hossein Rassam, who is employed as a political analyst at the British embassy and helped monitor the elections. – ( Guardianservice)
Call for arrests of defeated rivals
TEHRAN – Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has said that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, a defeated presidential candidate and former president, should be tried for incitement after the disputed presidential poll.
If Mousavi, [defeated candidate Mehdi] Karoubi and [former president Mohammad] Khatami are main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are,” Yadollah Javan, a senior Guard commander, said yesterday, “we expect the judiciary . . . to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them.” This was reported by the official IRNA news agency. – (Reuters)