Print

Mail

wiki links

Iranian-American detainees appear again on Iranian TV

Two Iranian-Americans accused of conspiring against the government were shown on state-run TV for a second time with montages of separate quotes combined to form what could be interpreted as incriminating statements.

Thursday's broadcast was the second episode of a program on Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, who spoke in Farsi. The first installment, aired on Wednesday, had similar montages of disparate quotes, and supporters of the detainees and the US government have called the program illegitimate and coerced.

"After five months of staying in Iran, I concluded that these people and I ... in the name of democracy ... were trying to create a network to lead to very essential changes in the system of Iran," said Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "It means to make the system unstable."

Esfandiari, 67, was detained in January. She has been held largely incommunicado since May except for brief phone conversations with her mother

Tajbakhsh, a consultant with the Open Society Institute who has been held since May, said the institute had a "long-term aim ... to create a gap between the government and nation ... to put pressure on the government to change."
This story has been viewed 1333 times.