In Iran, 10 more post-vote protestors go on trial

Iran has begun the trial of another 10 people who were detained during the country’s post-election protests.

“This morning, 10 other suspects were put on trial in a closed court session,” ISNA quoted a judiciary official as saying on Sunday.

The first court session for detained Iranian opposition figures and protesters began on Saturday to determine the fate of those charged with ‘acting against national security’ and ‘conspiring with foreign powers to stage a “Velvet Revolution”‘.

Saturday’s trial was held after nearly 3,000 people were arrested in Iran in the aftermath of the unrest that ensued Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in the June 12 vote.

In Sunday’s session, however, there were not any ‘known’ political activists among the defendants, ISNA reported, adding that these 10 people were among those arrested in the streets during the post-vote unrest.

Reformist figure Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, accused of provoking and taking part in deadly riots after the presidential election, reportedly testified during the Saturday hearing that the vote was ‘clean’ and that allegations of fraud in the presidential election were ‘a lie’.

Abtahi said, according to his confession, defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former president Mohammad Khatami and head of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani took an ‘oath’ to have one another’s backs as they prepared to stage the ‘Velvet Revolution’.

Reformist figures have rejected the trial as a ‘show’, questioning the legitimacy of confessions and the methods by which they were extracted.