By DPA,
Tehran : A group of demonstrators, political activists and journalists faced charges of fomenting a “Velvet Revolution” in the Islamic state as their trial began Saturday, Iranian media reported.
The official news agency IRNA reported that a variety of charges had been filed against about 100 defendants. All stand accused of acting against national security by pushing for a “Velvet Revolution”, a reference to the bloodless revolt that forced the collapse of the Communist regime in the then Czechoslovakia in 1989.
Specifically, they are accused of plotting against the government, planning riots, attacking military and state-owned buildings and conspiring against the establishment.
Several prominent activists and former officials, such as former vice president Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh, former lawmaker and director general of a leading reformist party Mohsen Mirdamadi, former vice speaker Behzad Nabavi and prominent journalist Mohammad Atrianfar, were among the accused appearing in court Saturday.
Under Iran’s Islamic law, anyone found guilty of acting against national security could be awarded the death penalty.
Pictures from the courtroom released by Iranian media showed Abtahi, Mirdamadi and Atrianfar looking thin in their gray-coloured prison uniforms, sitting among about 100 defendants in the large, packed courtroom.
This is the first time since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution that dozens of former officials and prominent activists have been put on trial together for acting against national security.
The June 12 presidential vote led to the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Defeated moderate candidates Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi accused the authorities of rigging the election, prompting tens of thousands of their supporters to protest in the capital Tehran and other large Iranian cities.
Over 1,000 protestors, political activists and journalists have been arrested in the protests, but most have been released. About 250 people remain in detention. An additional 20 were killed during the protests.
In Germany, Amnesty International’s National Secretary General Monika Lueke called on Iranian authorities not to stage show trials, and said her organisation would monitor the proceedings closely.
She also called on the authorities to stop use of torture in the country’s prisons, to restore press freedom and to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of those killed in recent clashes.