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Iran starts trial of election protesters
Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08 :07:29 GMT
The first court session is under way in
Tehran to consider the charges against a
group of political activists and a number of
‘rioters' allegedly involved in the recent
post-election unrest in the Islamic
Republic.
The news of the start of the proceedings was
reported to have been released by the Tehran
Prosecutor's Office, according to the official
IRNA news agency.
The report does not specify the number of those
whose cases are being heard today, but IRNA reported that a number of
leading opposition figures were among the accused at court.
Those named included former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh,
former lawmakers Mohsen Mirdamadi, Behzad Nabavi and Mohsen Safaei-
Farahani.
Also named were Mohammad Ali Abtahi one of the deputies of the former
two-term President Mohammad Khatami and Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, one of
Khatami's associates.
Earlier Iran's Judiciary announced that the trial of 30 ‘rioters' will begin today.
There are no reports as to when those arrested in provincial cities will have
their day in court.
Following Iran's 10th presidential election on June 12, supporters of defeated
candidates, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, took to the streets in
protest against what they described as massive “ballot rigging” and the
officially-announced results that gave the incumbent Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term in office with almost two-thirds of the
votes.
Over a thousand people were arrested in the aftermath of the election, some
of whom have since been released. About 140 of them said to have been
released in the past few days.
Tehran's Public Prosecutor's Office declared in a statement on July 29 that a
number of suspects were identified from their photos taken during street
unrests, and thanked the Iranian nation for help in identifying them. “People's
help will lead to identification of more rioters in the near future,” it promised.
Ten charges were listed, including attacking military centers with weapons and
fire-bombs and attacking security forces; damaging public and private
properties, distributing pamphlets against the sacred system of the Islamic
Republic; relations with anti-Iranian terrorist groups such as the
Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization (MKO); and preparing reports for the
foreign media and the “enemies.”
DB/ZAP/DT
_A
Political activists and protesters stood
trial in Tehran on Saturday on charges
of ‘rioting and conspiring against the
ruling system' in first trial following the
presidential election.
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