Miliband concern over Iran trial
BBC
09-Aug-2009 (one comment)

Foreign Secretary David Miliband says he is "deeply concerned" over the trial in Iran of a British Embassy worker. Iranian Hossein Rassam is accused in Tehran of spying and inciting unrest after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in June.

Mr Miliband said the charges against the embassy's chief political analyst were unjustified and the trial "brings further discredit" on Iran's regime. Mr Rassam was among the accused at a mass trial which began on Saturday.

Mr Miliband said: "I am deeply concerned by the unjustified charges today laid against Hossein Rassam in Tehran. "Hossein is a member of our embassy staff going about his legitimate duties.

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vildemose

"Tennessee turkey shoot"

by vildemose on Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:29 AM PDT

 Amir Taheri this time is spot on despite his past shilling for the neocons:

 

Once that phase was complete, the authorities proceeded to arrest the mid-ranking members of the movement, putting some 200 "tactical ringleaders" under lock and key. Last week, the regime started putting some of them on trial, extracting televised "confessions" from a few of them. The regime is laying the ground for Stalinist-style purges and trials. According to Tehran sources, thousands of government functionaries will soon be asked to sign papers endorsing Ahmadinejad's re-election or face dismissal. Clearly, the aim is to use this so-called "bay'ah" (allegiance) campaign as a pretext for purging the civil and the military and security services.
The next logical step would be to arrest all or some members of the quartet. The regime is already testing the waters and gauging possible international reaction.

The official media have started preparing the public for arresting the top leaders of the movement.
State-controlled newspapers claim to have received telephone calls and letters from their readers calling for Mousavi, Khatami, Karrubi and Rafsanjani to be put on trial as "enemies of Islam."
Pro-Ahmadinejad mullahs, addressing mosque congregations, also call for the "leaders of the sedition" to be brought to justice.
The official news agencies accuse Khatami of being part of "a Freemasonry plot" to secularize the Islamic, and Rafsanjani of being in cahoots with the British to destabilize the country. Karrubi is accused of receiving money from a notorious conman who is in hiding. There are attempts at linking Mousavi with the renegade group Mujahedin Khalq (People's Combatants) who worked for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.

Khamenei himself has accused the four leaders of acting like those "hypocrites" (munafeqin) who built a mosque in Medina with the aim of dividing the newly emergent Islamic "ummah". Official propaganda is also using the language of class warfare against the four dissident leaders. They are labeled as symbols of "the aristocracy of wealth and privilege", men who wear expensive clothes and watches, drive foreign cars, live in sumptuous villas, send their children to Western universities, and own business empires.
The "Tennessee turkey shoot" a la Iranian could get very ugly indeed.

//iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2009&m=08&d=07&a=1


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