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RIGHTS-IRAN: Damaging Forced Confessions
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, May 4, 2009 (IPS) - Iranian political refugees living in India say there is an all too familiar ring about
the supposed confessions of arrested journalist Roxana Saberi, which they
expect to see footage of on television soon.
Saberi, who has both United States and Iranian citizenships, was sentenced to
eight years in prison on charges of spying for the U.S.
Disturbingly, for hundreds of Iranian expatriates living in the Indian capital,
even before the trial began, the deputy prosecutor, Judge Hassan Haddad,
reportedly stated that Saberi had accepted charges of espionage activities.
Haddad's statement was greeted with shock by her father, Reza Saberi.
"Roxana told us her confessions were not true and that she had made them
up under pressure. They had promised to release her after the confessions
and she denies all of her confessions," he told reporters in Tehran.
"Forced confessions made before television cameras by high profile detainees
are routine in Iran," Mohsen Namakian, member of the exiled Ale Yassin community,
told IPS in New Delhi. "They are used to gain political mileage that has
particular value during election time."
"Unfortunately for the authorities," added Namakian, "no one in Iran gives any
credence to such confessions and it is well known that most of them are
doctored for added effect."
Namakian cited the case of a student, Majid Tavakkoli, who, in March 2008,
some months after he was arrested, released an open letter from Tehran’s
notorious Evin prison with clues to the forced nature of his taped confessions.
"Although the confession was made at the chief’s office of the security ward
209, using a sofa, and TV in the background to show that everything was
normal and natural, signs that we [Tavakkoli and two other arrested students]
had been kept in jail for ten months were apparent from the prison clothing
and our messy, dishevelled faces that were the result of torture," Tavakkoli
wrote.
A few months earlier, in January 2008, Tavakkoli had released an open letter
describing some of the torture he had been put through. In it he had named
the wardens who had pushed him around and punched him.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi, a Shia leader known for his secularist beliefs was made
to recant and enact fake confessions for use on television.
In September 2008 Amnesty International (AI) said in a report: Ayatollah
Boroujerdi has reportedly been tortured and ill treated on numerous
occasions since his arrest. He is said to have been beaten, thrown against a
wall, and to have had cold water thrown on him when he was sleeping. It has
been alleged that photographs and videos were taken of him - while he was
in a forced state of undress - which the authorities allegedly threatened to
distribute publicly to pry a statement of repentance and confessions on a
range of allegations.
Six months later, Ale Yassin experts launched a campaign to expose such
unfair actions and analysed the confessions in a documentary. It was clear
that Boroujerdi’s images were edited, said Namakian. There were more a
compilation of faked confessions by other religious leaders who had fallen
from grace.
Ale Yassin has reason to be concerned about fake confessions since the
group’s leader, Payman Fattahi, is a well-known victim. AI said in a report:
"Payman Fattahi, the leader of a group known as the Ale Yassin, was arrested
on Jan. 14, 2009 after being summoned to an interrogation session at the
department for dealing with religions in the ministry of intelligence."
"Payman Fattahi had previously spent about five months in detention after his
arrest in May, during which he was reportedly tortured and interrogated about
a variety of alleged offences, including acting against state security,
establishing a sect, and promoting Christianity and atheism," the AI report
said. "The group has also been vilified in state-owned press."
Speaking by telephone from Canada where she is based, Yalda Noorshahi,
the spokeswoman of Ale Yassin, told IPS that her community would work to
expose the forced and faked confessions being used against Fattahi.
"They have made faked pictures, using editing techniques, to destroy
Fattahi’s personality and destroy our credibility. We have the original version
of the faked film and we have been showing both to expose the trick nature
of these so-called confessions," Noorshahi said.
In the faked version, Fattahi says: "In the name of truth and legitimacy, in the
name of justice and liberation, I confess there is no truth about me. My intent
was my selfishness. I intended to divert people. I wanted to destroy people’s
religion. I was wrong, I repent, I apologise to people."
But in the original version he is saying: "If great leaders and men like Mansoor
were alive today, they have to confess in Inquisition Courts for the sake of
releasing and they let them go. They have to appear against cameras and
confess: In the name of truth and legitimacy, in the name of."
According to Noorshahi, Fattahi is still in custody and under physical and
psychological torture and his health is deteriorating - this suggests the poor
state of other detainees in Evin prison, including Saberi.
The outside world’s best known example of televised fake confessions were
supposed to have been made by a group of British sailors who had spent 13
days in an Iranian jail in March and April 2007, after having been captured in
the Persian Gulf.
After they were released the sailors withdrew the confessions that they had
made to their Iranian captors admitting to "illegal entry" into Iranian waters.
According to Namakian, Iranian officials systematically try to convert
situations into propaganda for local consumption and think nothing of
distortion of facts or misrepresentation.
In the case of Saberi, officials initially said she was being held for buying a
bottle of wine and then, later, changed the charges to working as a reporter
without proper credentials, and finally to espionage on behalf of the U.S.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a journalists’
advocacy group, Saberi has been living in Iran since 2003, freelancing for a
number of news organisations, and writing a book about Iranian culture. Saberi has contributed to IPS from Iraq,
Lebanon and Tajikistan.
Although Iranian authorities revoked Saberi’s press credentials in 2006, she
continued to file short news items, the journalists’ group said. She was
detained in January and on Apr. 9 word emerged that she had been charged
with espionage.
Saberi’s situation is seen by many as similar to that of Canadian-Iranian
philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, whom the authorities arrested in April 2006
and released after four months of detention once he had "confessed" that his
scholarly work had contributed to the planning of a "velvet revolution."
International human rights law protects detained persons from being forced
into making "confessions." The International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, to which Iran is a party, protects the right of every person not to be
compelled to "testify against himself or to confess guilt."
It is unlawful for authorities to use coercive means to obtain incriminating
statements - furthermore, broadcasting such statements is a form of
degrading treatment prohibited by international law.
(END)
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