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Iran's opposition says prominent supporters have been tortured in an effort to extract "confessions" that foreign forces in league with Mir Hossein Mousavi are plotting against the Islamic republic, the Guardian reports. Amnesty International, citing "very credible sources," says screams have been heard from reformist politicians jailed in the section of Tehran's Evin prison reserved for political prisoners.
A leading Iranian religious leader has called for the execution of "rioters" who have led a series of anti-government protests following the country's disputed June 12 presidential election.
Ahmad Khatami, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, told worshippers during a sermon at Friday prayers that Iran's judiciary should charge such rioters as "mohareb", or one who wages war against God.
So whilst the allegations of torture are held up as a 'despicable act' by another regime, it's somehow acceptable to 'hard interrogate' suspects by use of water-boarding and other techniques by the US state? Pot...Kettle...
Software developed by a Canadian lab to circumvent online censorship has been downloaded by more than 18,000 Iranians in the last 10 days, says its developer Rafal Rohozinski."This speaks to the hunger for access to information when it's being denied," Rohozinski told AFP.t
An influential cleric told worshippers Friday that those stirring unrest in connection with the recent election should be punished "ruthlessly and savagely" for waging war against God, a crime that under Shiite Islamic law is punishable by death.
"Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution," Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami said in a nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.
Iranians torturing Iranians is waaaaaay worse than human beings torturing human beings of differing ethnicities...thanks for clearing that up.
The Iranian authorities have used this technique before to humiliate and discredit opponents. In 2007, state television aired "confessions" by US-Iranian academics Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ramin Jahanbegloo in which they said they had worked with pro-democracy groups that the regime claimed were plotting its downfall. This week, state television broadcast interviews with several people admitting to being "terrorists" after purportedly taking part in street demonstrations.
Originally posted by pluckynoonez
He who is without sin cast the first stone. We torture. We electrocute genitalia...and don't tell me it is "different" (as in circumstances) because it is not. I say, this is the world we live in.
BEIJING - Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms.
Between 1988 and 1990, amid a lesser global economic slump, pro-democracy protests that appeared to inspire and energize one another broke out in Eastern Europe, Burma, China and elsewhere. Not all evolved into full-fledged revolutions, but communist regimes fell in a broad swath of countries, and the global balance of power shifted.
Unfortunately, as you witness in the international media, contrary to the letter of the constitution, and the stated freedoms in the Islamic Republic, all my communication with the people and you has been cut off, and people’s peaceful objections are being crushed. The national media which is being financed with public funds, with a revolting misrepresentation is changing the truth, and labels the peaceful march of close to three million people as anarchist, and the media that are being controlled by the government have become the mouthpiece of those who have stolen the people’s votes.