Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi said on his Web site on Thursday that some of those arrested after the June presidential election were tortured to death, but other inmates defended their treatment.
Authorities were not immediately available for comment, but state television, in a report on a parliamentary committee investigating claims of prison abuse, has shown people testifying that they were treated properly.
“I am not under pressure. I am satisfied with the conditions provided by the jail authorities,” said a young detainee in Tehran’s Evin prison, where many political prisoners are held.
Expanding on allegations he made on Sunday that some arrested protesters, men and women, had been raped at Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, Karoubi said detainees had reported being forced to go naked, with prison guards riding on their backs.
Still others were piled on top of each other, also naked.
“We observe that in an Islamic country some young people are beaten to death just for chanting slogans in [the post-election] protests,” Karoubi’s Etemademelli Web site said.
“Some of the detainees said they were forced to take off their clothes. Then they were made to go on their hands and knees and were ridden [by prison guards],” Karoubi said.
“Or the prison authorities put them on top of each other while they were naked,” he added.
His allegation about prisoners in Kahrizak prison being raped was rejected by Iranian authorities as “baseless.”
Many of the post-election detainees were held in the south Tehran prison, built to house people breaching vice laws. At least three people died in custody there and widespread anger erupted as reports of abuse in the jail spread.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of the Kahrizak prison last month.
The abuse allegations, also rejected by Tehran’s police chief, have created a rift among hardline politicians, many of whom backed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
The disputed election was followed by the worst unrest in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.
‘PRESIDENT’S WORD’
A senior Iranian cleric seen as Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor said obeying the head of government was like obeying God, the moderate Etemad-e Melli newspaper said.
Firebrand cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi believes the authority of Khamenei comes from God, not from the people.
Khamenei presides over a complex political and clerical system known as vali-ye faqih, or religious jurisprudence, with the president in charge of the day-to-day governing of the country.
“When a president is endorsed by the vali-ye faqih, obeying the president is like obeying God,” the daily quoted Mesbah-Yazdi as saying.
Mesbah-Yazdi’s followers have great sway among Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and the Basij volunteer paramilitary force.
The Guard’s political chief Yadollah Javani has called for defeated candidates Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi as well as moderate former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to be put on trial for inciting election unrest.
At least 200 people still remain in jail, including senior moderate politicians, activists, lawyers and journalists.
Khamenei swiftly endorsed Ahmadinejad’s re-election after the June 12 presidential vote.
The losing candidates say the poll was rigged, a charge denied by Iran’s authorities, including Khamenei, who has accused Western powers of fomenting the vote unrest.
Moderates say 69 protesters were killed in the demonstrations, contradicting the official report of 26 deaths.
FRENCHWOMAN’S RELEASE
Iran’s police and security forces quelled the protests and the judiciary has now begun mass trials of more than 100 moderates, despite the damage it might inflict on the government’s legitimacy and relations with the West.
The US, its European allies and Iranian moderates have denounced the mass trials as a “sham.”
Among those being tried are French teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss and two employees of French and British embassies in Tehran, accused of espionage and taking part in a Western plot, charges France and Britain say are baseless.
Reiss’s father said on Thursday he hoped his daughter would leave prison later in the day, after France agreed to provide bail for her conditional release.
The fallout from the post-election unrest clouds prospects of Iran accepting US President Barack Obama’s offer of direct talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese