IRANIAN TELEVISION IS WAGING STRONG ANTI-SEMITIC PROPAGANDA
TEHRAN 25TH May (IPS) Following specific orders from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the staunchly anti-Semite, anti- Israeli, anti-American leader of the Islamic Republic, Jewish properties, shops and individuals are systematically attacked in Tehran and other major Iranian cities by zealot Islamist fundamentalists, according to well informed sources.
The pogroms are encouraged by the "Voice and Visage" (Radio and Television) of the Islamic Republic that, since the opening of a trial of 13 Iranian Jews accused of spying for Israel, is broadcasting several times a day the "confessions" by the accused admitting they spied for Israel on religious grounds.
Members of the Ansar Hezbollah, thugs in black shirts on the payroll of Ayatollah Khameneh'i roam Jewish quarters in Tehran and other cities, spits at Jews, smash shops belongs to Jewish merchants or force them to shut their business and often asks for ransom", one source told Iran Press Service.
"Classmates were treating Jewish children with contempt at school. Fear and shame has kept some Jews from going to schools or work", the sources added.
"The Television has erected itself as a field tribunal for the Jews as it has recorded so-called confessions made by the alleged suspects where they admit to their guilt. In fact, the TV confessions have been recorded before the start of the trial, without the presence of lawyers, under mysterious circumstances and conditions and worse of all, are played and re-played several times a day on different channels", observed Mr. Esma'il Naseri, the spokesman for the team of defence lawyers.
He told the Persian service of the BBC that despite several protests, the Television authorities never accepted to also talk to the defence and ask their views on the so-called confessions.
"What the Voice and Visage is doing is to inculcate and persuade the public opinion that these people really spied for Israel on religious grounds and therefore they must be punished", he declared.
Like most Iranian key and strategic positions and administrations, the Radio and Television is directly controlled by Ayatollah Khameneh'i.
Source who knows Mr. Khameneh'i from his hometown of Mash-had, the Capital city of the northeastern Province of Khorasan where he was a preacher say he has a record of pro-nazi, anti-Semitic activities.
The Television, which is headed by Mr. Ali Larijani, a former Intelligence officer, routinely broadcast interviews with revisionist writers such a the French philosopher Roger Garaudy while the book "The Protocols" are re-edited by the leader-controlled Islamic Propaganda organisation.
Mr. Harun Yashaya'i, the leader of the Iranian Jewish Society said the aim of the Television confessions of the accused is to prove that these people spied on religious grounds, "something that is totally absurd, for not only our faith teaches us to be faithful to the land where we live on, but on the specific case of Iran, this is more than evident since we have lived on this soil for more than 4000 years", he observed in an interview with the Persian service of the BBC.
"This (trial and attacks) has created a very difficult situation for us", he warned.
"I have documents showing that several shops owned by Jews were attacked, and one was set on fire in Tehran", Mr. Yashaya'i said, adding that police have confirmed the attacks, including the fire set to a curtain store belonging to a Jewish trader in Tehran's Tohid Square.
Jewish community MP-elect Maurice Mo'tamed said Jewish schoolchildren and teenagers in Shiraz had been recently subjected to verbal abuse.
Numbering at more than 100.000 before the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian Jewish community, one of the oldest in the world, dwindled to less than 30.000, still the largest and freest in the Middle East
"The televised confessions have placed a cloud over the Jewish community," Mo'tamed said.
The state's case is based almost entirely on confessions made by eight of the accused, but defence lawyers say prosecutors must show that secret information damaging to Iran actually changed hands in order to meet the legal standard for espionage.
Naseri repeated criticism of the trial and the closed, no-jury court where Judge Sadeq Nourani is also the prosecutor.
"I don't blame the judge, I blame the primitive and reactionary law that allows the revolutionary courts, where the judge is equivalent to God, nobody can touch him, nobody has any control," said Naseri, a former revolutionary court judge.
He said that confessions after 15 months of incarceration for some of the suspects could not be considered valid because of the psychological pressure.
Highly informed sources close to the accused said during their 15 months of solitary imprisonment, most of the detainees have been brainwashed and persuaded that what they have done is espionage.
Naseri, who also acts as a spokesman for the defence, said Faramarz Kashi, one of the accused, rescinded Wednesday earlier testimony implicating his younger brother Farzad in the alleged spy ring.
"From this admission of lies by Faramarz we can deduce that many of the other confessions could be based on shaky grounds", he argued.
But Hojatoleslam Hosseinali Amiri , the head of the Fars province Justice said that cross-examinations showed there is a strong basis to prove and corroborate the earlier confessions.
Nine of the 10 suspects in detention have admitted to some relationship with Israel, but their lawyers have denied they spied. Three co-defendants have pleaded innocent and are free on bail.
Lawyers said the supposed confessions of the accused were full of inconsistencies and that the prosecution had failed to provide adequate evidence or any witnesses to justify their conviction. ENDS JEWS TRIAL 25500