Iran Opens 4th Mass Trial of Opposition Supporters

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25 August 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

Iran has put on trial a fourth group of leading opposition supporters, including some who served as ministers in the reformist government of former president Mohammad Khatami. The prosecution alleges the accused are guilty of conspiring with foreign powers to sow civil unrest in Iran and destabilize the republic. Opposition leaders and independent observers say the accused are being put on trial for nothing more than being in the opposition, within a democratic system.

According to the LA Times’ Borzou Daragahi:

Hard-line supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad employed the nation’s judiciary against two major moderate political parties in their boldest attempt to excise Iran’s reform movement from the political scene.

The prosecution at the fourth session of an extraordinary legal proceeding, derided by international and domestic legal experts as a “show trial,” put a severely disabled reformist leader on trial and urged the judge to outlaw the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedin Organization, two pillars of the reform movement that took control of the country’s presidency and parliament during a liberal era that began in the late 1990s and ended earlier this decade.

That the ruling conservative hard-liners are using the judiciary to not only clamp down on the opposition, but to rig Iran’s democracy by banning leading opposition figures and parties from the political process, is widely reported as fact in the international media. Opposition leaders within Iran say the government is using the trials as a means to capitalize on what they say was a fraudulent election process designed to override the votes of ordinary Iranians.

The Iranian system of democracy has come under unprecedented scrutiny in the the months since the vote of 12 June 2009, as its complex layering of direct and indirect democratic structures is implicated in the jockeying for power among leading clerics and politicians. Iran’s constitution is very explicit in guaranteeing the right to free assembly and to free speech, both of which are being treated by the current government as threats to the republic.

The constitution is also explicit in specifying that even the supreme leader is equal before the law, just one citizen among all. And, the constitutional process specifies that the supreme leader serves at the suffrage of the Assembly of Experts of Qom, a group of leading clerical intellectuals who determine the moral and theological fitness of an individual to serve in that post, equivalent to head of state. The Assembly of Experts is headed by Ayatollah Khamene’i’s arch-rival, the Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a former president.

Even as Pres. Ahmedinejad, whom many believe did not win the June elections, selected his new cabinet, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi announced the founding of a new movement called the Green Path of Hope or Green Way of Hope. His website specified that the Green Path of Hope is not a political party —which would require government permission— but rather a “grass roots and social network” aimed at fostering democracy and transparency.

The government’s attitude toward the grass-roots opposition movement has been uniformly hostile: after Mousavi and fellow opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi joined in criticism of the mass prosecution of opposition figures, the government announced it would prosecute anyone who questioned or spread negative statements about the trial process itself.

Mousavi and former president Khatami have both voiced strong moral indignation over the trials and the brutality of the security offensive against opposition supporters. Khatami said the trials are an “insult” both to Iran and to Islam, and suggested that they endanger the republic itself. He said “Such play-acting … damages the system and reduces public trust”.

CNN reports that protest leaders and opposition figures are facing charges including:

Attacking military facilities using firearms and firebombs … Attacking government facilities and setting fire to them … Destruction of public property … Creating panic in public … Beating up members of the security forces…

In each case, opposition figures claim to have video evidence and direct testimony that the violence was carried out exclusively by members of the security forces and the Basij militia. The government claims that such footage was orchestrated in order to sow international outrage and destabilize the government. There is video evidence showing security forces and Basij militia assaulting unarmed protesters and even shooting them.

The government of the Islamic republic has tended to be more authoritarian than its constitution would suggest it should be, but the events of the summer of 2009 have seen the leadership move toward a position that anyone questioning individuals, policies or actions of the conservative establishment should be treated as enemies of the republic worthy of jailing or prosecution.

At a time when the Iranian public seems to be liberalizing, the government is trying to establish the singular dominance of one power bloc over the entire Iranian political system. Early rumors that Ayatollah Rafsanjani might organize the Assembly of Experts in the holy city of Qom to vote out the supreme leader seem now to have faded, and some observers sympathetic to the opposition are expressing concern that the brutal violence and indiscriminate jailing of the post-election crackdown may have broken the opposition’s strength.

But there are reports from Tehran suggesting the opposition leadership is biding its time, waiting for the government of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and/or the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, to make mistakes that will ignite popular sentiment against them and favor the opposition’s cause. Some believe they may be planning to mount a legal challenge to the legitimacy of the trials, the crackdown and the election, seeking charges against members of the current leadership.

Pres. Ahmedinejad’s power in office may be significantly reduced by the political struggles of the summer and the perception that his re-election was brought about by manipulation and the use of force against civilians. Already, there appears to be opposition in the parliament to some of his cabinet picks. Both conservatives and reformists may be setting up a challenge to Ahmedinejad’s nominees, and stiff opposition could limit his governing authority.

The trials of opposition supporters and former government officials are being viewed by both sides as a test of whether the current government can demonstrate its legitimacy or win public support for its leadership and its initiatives. Ahmedinejad may be lending fodder to critics who say his 2nd term is not legitimate, by naming inexperienced but strong allies to major posts, like the position of oil minister.