Iran's state-run television on Monday broadcast the first video of two Iranian-American scholars since they were detained in May on espionage charges.
Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with ties to George Soros' Open Society Institute, were shown briefly on the midday news.
The Iranian authorities have suggested that the two have confessed that in their work in Iran, they were trying to overthrow the government.
PHOTO: AP
The television news said their full statements would be broadcast today and tomorrow in a program titled In the Name of Democracy.
It said that the program would also show statements by Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian-Canadian scholar who was arrested last year on similar charges and held for four months. He was released in August after confessing that foreign agents might have exploited his expertise.
The US has denied that the two are spies and demanded their release. Iran analysts have suggested that hardliners in the Iranian government may be seeking to use the arrests for leverage with the US.
The television clip appeared to be of interviews made separately. Esfandiari was shown wearing a black headscarf and was seated next to a plant and a large white refrigerator.
"I am Haleh Esfandiari, and one of my roles was to identify speakers," Esfandiari was heard saying.
"In the name of dialogue, in the name of women's rights, in the name of democracy," she was heard saying in another brief segment.
Tajbakhsh is heard saying the words "to divide the people from the government." The role of the Soros center "after the collapse of the communism," he said, "was to focus on the Islamic world." He was holding what appeared to be notes.
State-run television has previously shown similar video described as confessions made by other detainees. Most of them have rejected their statements after their release and have said that they were forced to make the statements under duress.
Both Tajbakhsh and Esfandiari were believed to have been in solitary confinement since their arrests, lawyers have said.
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