Vol. 73/No. 35      September 14, 2009

Sustained street demonstrations in the hundreds of thousands rocked Iran following the June 12 presidential elections. The protesters had supported former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, viewing him as more favorable to democratic rights, including the rights of women. When the government announced that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won by a large margin, Mousavi backers poured into the streets in many cities charging fraud. It took more than a week for security forces to bring the protests under control.

The Iranian parliament reported that 30 people were killed in the demonstrations, but Mousavi forces say 69 died. Both liberal and some powerful conservative voices have criticized the way the government responded to the protests and the revelations of torture and deadly beatings of demonstrators who were arrested.

Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of one prominent conservative, died in prison from meningitis, his family was told. However the August 31 Mehr News reported, “A coroner’s commission on August 16 reached its final finding that the cause of Ruholamini’s death was physical stress, bad detention conditions, and repeated blows, including one from a hard object.”

The case of Ruholamini has drawn particular attention because his father is a close aide to Mohsen Rezaei, a long-time military commander who ran for president against Ahmadinejad.

Central leaders of the campaigns of Mousavi and of presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, who also called for more freedoms, are now on trial, accused of trying to overthrow the government in a plot said to have had U.S., British, and Israeli backing. Key defendants have made “confessions” widely believed to be forced.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top Shiite cleric who strongly backed the suppression of the demonstrations, sought to strike a more conciliatory tone in an August 26 meeting with students in Tehran. “I don’t accuse the leaders of the recent incidents of being affiliated with foreign countries, including the U.S. and Britain, because it has not been proven to me,” he said.

He promised the students that a raid on a Tehran University dorm that killed four students and the abuse of demonstrators taken to Kahrizak prison would be investigated and those found guilty punished.

President Ahmadinejad two days later said that no one in Iran’s security forces was responsible for any torture or abuse that took place during the protests. He called for the arrest of the “main agents” behind the demonstrations, clearly referring to Mousavi and his closest associates.

“The main elements behind the riots should not be immune while their inferiors are punished,” he said, according to Fars News Agency. “Those being deceived and the inferior elements in the riots should be treated with Islamic compassion.”

Khamenei recently appointed Sadeq Larijani head of Iran’s judiciary. One of Larijani’s first moves was to place Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei in the prosecutor general’s seat. Ahmadinejad had fired Ejei from his post as intelligence minister over disagreements that included the handling of the postelection demonstrations.

Larijani has removed the Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, who had been directing the show trials. Mortazavi is also notorious for closing down opposition newspapers and imprisoning journalists and other activists.

The trials are continuing, however. Brig. Gen. Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Pasdaran, the main military arm of the government, demanded “swift retribution for rioters,” CNN reported.

An opposition Web site, Noruz, reported August 31 that an “unprecedented” number of security forces were amassed at the University of Shiraz, one of the first schools to reopen. Shiraz is about 500 miles south of Tehran. Some 100 students were arrested in Shiraz during the postelection demonstrations.
 
 
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