By Published On: September 9, 2020Categories: NEWS
Forced TV Confessions

MEK Iran: After many months of detention, solitary confinement, and public interrogation, they have been insisting on a TV interview, by threatening and pressuring them for the TV Confessions.

After the international campaign to stop the execution of Navid Afkari, a protester arrested in 2018, the Iranian regime broadcasted his forced confession to the public on TV for the second time. He was once a wrestling champion but following his arrest the 27-year-old has instead been the subject of torture and has been forced to confess publicly, resulting in him being sentenced to two executions.

Afkari wrote in a letter from his prison cell the following words: “For around 50 days I had to endure the most horrendous physical and psychological tortures. They would beat me with sticks and batons, hitting my arms, legs, abdomen, and back. They would place a plastic bag on my head and torture me until I suffocated to the very brink of death. They also poured alcohol into my nose.”

The case of Mostafa Salehi

Mostafa Salehi was another protester who was arrested in 2018 in the city of Isfahan who was also subjected to torture to get him to confess to killing a member of the security forces. A source who knows Mostafa Salehi’s family well revealed that: “Mostafa’s hand and both legs had been broken during interrogations. Agents also used needles to puncture under his nails. The tortures were so severe that his neck and spinal cord became injured.”

The cases of Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi

These are two elite university students who were arrested last April and have also been pressurized to hold televised forced confessions.

Ali Younesi’s sister tweeted “On Wednesday (September 2), my brother Ali Younesi was told to accept the charges against him in a televised confession, and in which case he will receive a life sentence instead of the death penalty. After five months of detention, solitary confinement, and public interrogation, they have been insisting for a TV interview, by threatening and pressuring (him) for the past three weeks.”

This sort of treatment of political prisoners has been known for a long time and Amnesty International just confirmed these human rights violations in relation to the protests in 2018 and 2019. Its report is called “Trampled Humanity.” The words used to describe the abuses that took place are:

  • waterboarding,
  • stress positions,
  • sexual violence,
  • mock executions,
  • forced administration of chemical substances,
  • floggings,
  • electric shocks,
  • deprivation of medical care,

The protests in November 2019 scared the Iranian regime’s foundation, so Ali Khamenei instructed his forces to a crackdown in any way possible, ultimately resulting in the deaths of 1,500 unarmed protesters.

There have been successful international campaigns throwing light on the executions that have taken place and which have stopped three executions.

The state-run Mostaghel daily recently wrote: “The sympathy and harmony of the society with the executed people and the awakening of their sense of compassion towards these selected [victims] by the ruling system are signs of the widening rift between the society and the government. As much as the government carries out executions coldly, society views these executions as violent and protests against them.”

The suppressive tactics used by the mullahs is in part a result of the international community’s failure to question their tactics over the last few years. This has given the regime the green light to continue with its human rights violations and subdue dissent ever since the 1988 massacre when 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members, and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), were executed in a short period of time. These executions usually took place following quick, unfair trials by “death commissions.”

Even today key figures in the death commissions hold important positions in the regime such as Raisi, head of the regime’s Judiciary, and Alireza Avaei, the current Justice Minister. This just goes to show that the regime has never offered an apology for those deaths 32 years ago and never intends to. However, the international community has the responsibility to hold the mullahs accountable for both past and current crimes.

As the main Iranian Resistance organization, the Mojahedin-e Khalk (MEK) has said time and time again, the following should be condemning these crimes against humanity:

  • the United Nations Security Council and its member states;
  • the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights;
  • the Human Rights Council;
  • the European Union.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi is the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI):

THE CRIMINAL VERDICTS OF IMPRISONMENT AND EXECUTION OF YOUNG PROTESTERS SIGNAL DESPERATION OF A MORIBUND REGIME.

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