MR. AFSHARI’S TELEVISED CONFESSIONS BACKFIRED ON THE REGIME

By Safa Haeri with reports from IPS Correspondent

PARIS-TEHRAN 19 May (IPS) Iranians reacted with utter dismay, disgust and indifference at what the clerical authorities presented as "confessions" made by Mr. Ali Afshari, a popular students leader and broadcast on the leader-controlled Radio and Television on Wednesday night.

In a meeting with Mr. Afshari’s family, classmates from the Amir Kabir Technical University described the confessions as "worn out" while families of the detained prisoners accused the authorities of "eating a dead man’s flesh".

Experts who saw the broadcast said Mr. Afshari seemed to be under the effects of tranquillisers or sedatives, as he spoke softly, his eyes looked absent, repeating at intervals that he asked for the interview and trying to give satisfactory answers to the questions of the interrogator while sending the message that he was speaking under duress.

Prison mates who had contacts with Mr. Afshari in Evin confirmed that both he and Mr. Ezzatollah Sahhabi, a veteran politician and journalist associated with the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) and the Islamist-nationalists were targeted by the authorities for the new series of televised confessions called "hoviyyat (Identity) II", prepared on orders from Ayatollah Ali Khamenehe'i, the fundamentalist leader of the Islamic Republic.

In the past months, some sixty members of the IFM and personalities affiliated with the Nationalist-religious groups have been rounded up by the Islamic Judiciary and imprisoned, on orders from Mr. Khameneh'i, who consider these forces as the most dangerous for his survival.

"Hoviyyat" was the name of a series prepared jointly by the Information Minister, the revolutionary Guards and the Voice and Visage (Radio and Television) under the presidency of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani aimed at mugging, slandering, degrading and shattering the image of prominent intellectuals, scholars, politicians and journalists.

Mr. Sa’id Eslami, the senior Deputy Intelligence Minister and Mr. Hoseyn Shariatmadari, a professional interrogator appointed by Mr. Khamenehe'i as the Editor of the evening daily Keyhan were among the series producers.

Mr. Emami committed suicide in prison, after being arrested with some other senior members of the Intelligence Minister found involved in the assassination of several leading intellectuals and politicians in November 1998.

Mr. Afshari was jailed last April on his return from Berlin, where he had participated at a meeting the conservatives said was organised by German Jewish circles and sponsored by the United States.

All the seventeen Iranians, among them journalists, lawyer, scholar, publisher, intellectuals and a cleric were charged of activities and propaganda against the Islamic state, offending the leader and insulting Islam.

Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari was even condemned to death, accused of apostasy and fighting God.

He, alongside Mr. Sahhabi and Afshari were latter transferred to Prison number 59 where prisoners are kept in individual cell, totally incommunicado, subject of intense psychological and physical tortures.

The Prison belongs to the Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence and is under the direct supervision of Ayatollah Khamenehe'i himself, informed sources said.

In a letter written to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the children of Mr. Sahhabi said when they last met their father, they found him absent minded, out of touch from realities, not even capable of recognising his family.

In the so-called "interview", Mr. Afshari "confessed" that he had participated in a campaign aimed at peacefully "overthrowing the regime and the velayat faqih system" by using the students movement to "polarise society", and "prepare the ground for the establishment of a non-religious government".

The leader-controlled Islamic revolution Tribunal announced Thursday that other television confessions would follow soon, but did not say when and with whom.

But prison sources said they expect to see Mr. Sahhabi and Hojjatoleslam Yusefi-Eshkevari confessing to similar charges brought against Mr. Afshari.

Jurist, lawyers and some MMs (Members of the Majles) as well as families of detained members of IFM and Nationalist-religious vigorously contested the televised confessions.

Mr. Afshari’s own lawyer said since his client had been in jail, he was not authorised to meet him nor have access to his files.

Dr. Karim Lahiji, the President of the Paris-based Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights denounced the "Stalinist" methods of torturing and forcing political prisoners to degrading confessions that have "no credit".

"When someone is in solitary confinement for a long period of time and he is interviewed in jail, with no other witnesses than the prison guards or interrogators, it is obvious what sort of thing he is expected to say", observed Mrs. Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo, an outspoken reformist deputy".

Mr. Ali Akbar Mo’infar, a former minister under Mr. Mehdi Bazargan, Islamic Iran’s first Premier and founder of the now banned IFM noted that none of the points Mr. Afshari confessed to could be described as illegal activities.

"Debating problems of the nation in students gatherings, even discussing role and position and powers of the leader is not against laws", he pointed out.

Mr Afshari has been arrested in December after having called for a "referendum" to review the responsibilities and privileges of the leader, in this case the narcissist and ego-centrist Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i.

Since then, referendum has become the battle cry of Iranian dissidents and some reformists deceived by Mr. Khatami.

Mr. Afshari’s televised confessions reminded that of Mr. Manoochehr Mohammadi, another students leader also jailed for plotting against the regime and contacting Iranian "counter-revolutionaries" during a trip to Europe and the US.

In the broadcast, Mr Afshari agreed that the reformist publications "willingly or not" were feeding foreign enemies of the Islamic Republic and accused the IFM and the Islamist-nationalists of having "penetrated" the Office of Consolidating Unity, Iran’s largest students organisation, in order to change the regime.

On orders of Mr. Khamenehe'i, more than 50 publications, almost all of them have been closed since last April and a dozen of journalists, editors and commentators jailed.

Mr. Afshari also "confessed" that the Islamist-nationalists and some members of the OCU were propagating that a theocratic system is unfit to rule in modern world, incapable of solving complex problems of modern-day and must be changed, with the clergy going back to the mosques, ending dealing with politics.

After having confessed to questioning the tenets of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's late revolutionary leader, and of seeking to "distance students from religious government and the Islamic element of the regime", Mr. Afshari apologised to the "Supreme Leader ... and the people of Iran".

The National Union of Journalists in Britain and Ireland joined other international organisations to condemn as "accessory to torture" the broadcast on Iran's state TV
of "confessions" of Mr. Ali Afshari, arrested five months ago during university protests against dictatorship.

NUJ's General Secretary John Foster said in the statement that: "This broadcast was a travesty of journalism. This young man has been imprisoned is likely to have suffered psychological torture. Those journalists who presented this interview as fact are acting as accessories to the abuse of judicial and human rights.

"All journalists should be concerned about this type of behaviour -the more so since Iran's independent media has suffered large-scale repression, making it impossible for journalists to present an opposite point of view", the statement said, adding that at not only the NUJ had expressed support for those Iranian journalists struggling to re-establish a free media, but also was looking at the issue of organising a boycott of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, "the only treatment they deserve from honest journalists the world over". ENDS AFSHARI CONFESSIONS 19501