IRAN: TRIAL INDICTMENT ALLEGES VAST CONSPIRACY AGAINST IRIG

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 RPO DUBAI 000318 NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 8/3/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM IR SUBJECT: IRAN: TRIAL INDICTMENT ALLEGES VAST CONSPIRACY AGAINST IRIG DUBAI 00000318 001.2 OF 002 CLASSIFIED BY: Timothy Richardson, Acting Director, Iran Regional Presence Office, DOS. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The August 1 trial of more than a hundred individuals arrested in the wake of the disputed presidential election continued the IRIG's efforts to re-assert control via repression. In a sprawling indictment, the IRIG linked US and Iran-based NGOs, Israel, foreign media outlets, the MEK, human and labor rights activists such as Shirin Ebadi, and Iranian reformist figures, among others, in a vast conspiracy aimed at toppling the IRIG. The trial highlighted the role that reformers supposedly played in such plots and sets the stage for their potential exclusion, writ large, from Iranian politics. If the IRIG fully bans reformers from the realm of legitimate competition, the government risks not only radicalizing an entire faction of influential political actors, but a large swath of the Iranian electorate as well. The trials are slated to continue August 7. End Summary. Trial Renews Assault Against Reformers ¶2. (C) Iran on August 1 began a trial of more than a hundred political activists, journalists, commentators and alleged rioters in the country's Revolutionary Court system, where the government's hardliners typically mete out "justice" to dissidents and political opponents. The prosecutor read a sprawling indictment linking US and Iran-based NGOs, Israel, foreign media, the MEK, human and labor rights activists and Iranian reformist figures, among others, in a vast conspiracy aimed at toppling the IRIG. Afterwards, high-profile defendants read confessions describing their roles in the plot and elaborate plans by the reformers to slander the June presidential election should their candidates not prevail. Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, a former First Vice President under Khatami and a senior advisor to Mehdi Karrubi's presidential campaign, alleged Rafsanjani and Khatami intended to use the election to take revenge against Supreme Leader Khamenei. He stated that there was no fraud in the election, arguing that vote manipulation could not reasonably explain Ahmadinejad's victory by a margin of 11 million votes. ¶3. (C) The Islamic Republic has long used manufactured confessions and woven elaborate charges involving foreign hands �0A;to discredit both activists with political aspirations and apolitical critics of the ruling system. Public or written confessions frequently accompany trials and are often a pre-condition for the accused to leave prison. This indictment also appears to represent the culmination of hardline fear mongering of a velvet revolution and the reformers' involvement in such schemes. The indictment is similar in both tone and substance to editorials appearing in Keyhan, a newspaper close to the Supreme Leader, accusations levied in state media, and the IRGC's public commentary over recent years. Abtahi's confession and particularly his assertion that the scale of Ahmadinejad's victory is prima facie evidence of the election's legitimacy echoes the argument the Supreme Leader made during Friday Prayers in June. As such, the accusations and public confessions are consistent with the IRIG's past practice. ¶4. (C) The scope of the accusations and the unprecedented number of defendants, however, suggests hardliners in the IRIG are upping the ante and likely using the trial as a means to bar reformers from the political playing field entirely. Hardliners have for years sought to marginalize reformers since their heyday during Khatami's first term as president (1997-2001), using their control over candidate vetting and the election process to significantly reduce the number of reformers in office, and their power over the media to restrict reform-oriented journalists and publications. Now hardliners are targeting key reformers and reformist bodies directly. Every prominent reformist organization is named in the indictment and many of those on trial hold key positions within these groups. The indictment sets the stage for Iran to ban these groups and exclude all reformers from politics; whether the government does so will be a key indicator of its intentions vis-a-vis the reformers. Such a step would be consistent with the IRIG's apparent decision to maintain power and defuse unrest by force of arms and repression rather than by offering concessions. DUBAI 00000318 002.2 OF 002 ¶5. (C) The indictment also included Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who is currently in Europe. Ebadi has been under increased pressure from the IRIG in recent years; her human rights organization was shut down and a few of her employees are now under arrest. Her inclusion in the indictment may be an effort to dissuade her from returning to Iran. Other relatively well-known critics of the government located outside Iran were also named. Reformers Denounce the Trial; Public Probably Not Convinced ¶6. (C) Rather than silencing dissent among key political figures, however, the first show trial has provoked unvarnished condemnation from Khatami, Mousavi, and Karrubi. The trial even elicited criticism from defeated conservative candidate Mohsen Rezai, who called on the government to forego additional trials and focus instead on punishing members of the security forces who attacked unarmed protestors. ¶7. (C) Predictably, contrived confessions and stage-managed trials seemingly carry little weight with mainstream Iranians beyond sympathy for the coercion endured by the defendants. IRPO contacts and reactions registered on blogs indicate that this trial is viewed as part and parcel of the fraud committed by the government to re-install Ahmadinejad as president and deflect blame away from the IRIG's leadership. Speculation about the treatment of prisoners - to include allegations the government drugged defendants to make them more compliant - abounds. Yet there also seems to be a current of disappointment in the defendants' willingness to publicly surrender. Abtahi and Mohammad Atrianfar, another prominent reformer, in particular are the subject of tentative criticism by Iranians who did not expect them - in their capacity as long-standing key figures of the reform movement - to offer such believable and thorough confessions. Comment: ¶8. (C) In setting the stage to potentially exclude all political actors sympathetic to the goals of the reform movement, the IRIG is substantially narrowing Iran's already modest political playing field. If they fully ban reformers from the realm of legitimate competition, the government risks not only radicalizing an entire faction of influential political actors, but a large swath of the Iranian electorate. RICHARDSON