TEHRAN: A conservative who ran in Iran’s disputed election and a former president allied with the opposition criticized the government’s prosecution of opposition supporters, saying those who killed protesters must be brought to justice.
Conservatives have increasingly joined reformists in criticizing the government’s response to the unrest that followed the June 12 election as allegations have surfaced of violent abuse against opposition supporters detained by authorities.
Mohsen Rezai, who was the only conservative challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the election, sent a letter to the head of Iran’s judiciary demanding the government put people on trial who attacked opposition supporters and tortured detainees. He said the trial must include those responsible for the death of the son of one of his top aides.
“Otherwise, justice will not be realized and it is possible that unrest will not end,” said Rezai, according to a report posted on his website on Sunday, a day after Iran began its first trial against activists and protesters.
While Rezai focused on the need for a parallel trial for those who attacked protesters and detainees, former President Mohammad Khatami criticized the current proceeding as a sham that would further erode confidence in the ruling establishment.
Khatami said he hoped the “show” trial of more than 100 people, including his former vice president, that started Saturday would not “lead to ignorance of the real crimes” carried out by authorities following the election. At least 30 people were killed in the unrest that followed the election as hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad’s victory. At least one person, Mohsen Rouhalamini, has died in detention.
Mohsen is the son of Rezai’s top aide, Abdolhossein Rouhalamini. He was arrested during a July 9 protest and taken to a hospital two weeks later where he died within hours. Reformist websites said his jaw was broken when his father received his body.
Hundreds of family members of detainees, including those on trial, gathered in front of the judiciary on Sunday to express concern about their relatives, a reformist website reported. It said the protest ended peacefully after three hours.
The defendants at the government’s mass trial include some of the most prominent reformist politicians, including Khatami’s former vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi. State media quoted Abtahi and others as confessing to working together to foment unrest.
“Relying on claimed confessions expressed in this specific situation has no credit,” said Khatami on his website. The former president, who held office from 1997 to 2005, criticized the court for not allowing defendants’ lawyers access to the courtroom or the case files.
Defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, too, dismissed the confessions. “The torturers and interrogators have gone to such lengths that their victims are among those who gave great services to Iran in the past,” he said on his website Ghalamnews.
