A reformist former government spokesman detained after Iran’s disputed election in June has been sentenced to six years in jail, the semi-official Fars news agency reported yesterday.
It said Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, who backed opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in the vote, was sentenced by a court on charges including acting against national security, propaganda against the Islamic system and possessing classified documents.
The report of his jail sentence coincides with mounting tension in Iran after the death of a leading dissident ayatollah and opposition reports of clashes between the cleric’s supporters and security forces in Isfahan on Wednesday.
Ramezanzadeh, who held his post during the 1997 to 2005 presidency of Mohammad Khatami, was among scores of senior pro-reform figures and activists detained after the poll on accusations of fomenting post-election unrest.
“Based on the court’s decision Ramezanzadeh was given a six-year obligatory jail sentence,” Fars quoted a Revolutionary court statement as saying, without saying when the verdict was issued.
Last month, Iranian media said reformist former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi was also sentenced to six years in jail. He was later released on bail of US$700,000 pending appeal.
Abtahi, one of dozens of leading moderates detained after the disputed election on charges of trying to topple the clerical establishment by orchestrating protests, was the most senior reformer to be jailed after the presidential election.
Thousands of people were arrested after the poll, which the opposition says was rigged in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s favor. Most of them have since been freed, but more than 80 have received jail sentences of up to 15 years in connection with protests after the vote, the judiciary says.
The authorities reject the opposition’s vote rigging charges and have portrayed the huge opposition protests that erupted after the election as foreign-backed.
Despite arrests and crackdowns, opposition supporters have continued to stage sporadic rallies.
Tension increased again after Saturday’s death of a dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri at the age of 87.
His death occurred in the tense run-up to Ashura on Sunday, a politically important Shiite religious commemoration that offers the opposition another opportunity to show its strength.
Meanwhile, the US accused Iran on Wednesday of increasingly behaving like a “police state” after clashes in Isfahan on Wednesday.
Hundreds of security force members surrounded the Seyed mosque, where a service for Montazeri was to be held and prevented mourners from entering, sparking the violence, opposition Web sites said.
The mourners were shouting slogans in support of Iran’s opposition Green Movement and police fired tear gas to disperse them, Web site Rahesabz.net said.
More than 50 protesters were arrested and security forces beat women and children, reports said.
“Iran is increasingly showing itself to be a police state,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. “It is using all of its levers, all of its various security elements to try to stamp out clearly the aspirations of the Iranian people for a different relationship with their government.”
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS