IRAN’S OPPOSITION leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, have signalled continuing defiance by denouncing “show trials” of politicians and activists charged with fomenting unrest after the disputed election.
Both men yesterday lambasted the Tehran regime for using forced confessions to accuse senior opposition figures of “acting against national security” and “conspiring with foreign powers” to stage a “velvet revolution”.
Mr Mousavi, a former prime minister who is widely believed to have beaten the incumbent hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the presidency in the June 12th election, claimed that the authorities in Tehran had been using torture.
“Soon we will see the trials of those who committed these crimes, the torturers and interrogators,” Mr Mousavi pledged on his Ghalamnews website.
On Saturday, Iranian state media broadcast images of some 100 defendants, including some of the country’s most prominent reformists, facing trial in a closed session covered only by the semi-official Fars News agency.
“The trial was a show and the confessions are invalid,” Mr Khatami’s website stated.
"What was called a trial was a violation of the constitution. Such show trials will directly harm the system and further damage public trust." – ( Guardianservice)