Confessions unlimited
Iranian American scholar Haleh Esfandiari of the Wilson Center, who is no policy ally of the Bush administration, was imprisoned on espionage charges in Iran last month. (Among the charges against her is her participation in a Zionist conspiracy; she is a Muslim, and her husband is Jewish.) Now she and others are said to have “confessed”. AFP:
Iran said on Sunday that several US-Iranians detained on accusations linked to spying “have confessed” as it warned the United States not to interfere in their cases. “Regarding the espionage of some Iranians, we have had good results. They have confessed to many issues,” the centrist Ham Mihan newspaper quoted the Tehran deputy prosecutor for security affairs, Hassan Hadad, as saying.
Iran has said it is holding Iranian-American academics Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh on charges of harming national security, in cases that several officials have linked to alleged US efforts to topple the clerical authorities.
Washington and hardline Iranian media have said that a third dual national, California-based businessman Ali Shakeri, has also been arrested, although this has yet to be confirmed by the authorities. A fourth US-Iranian, journalist Parnaz Azima, faces the same charges and has had her passport confiscated even though she remains at liberty.
Hadad did not specify which of the accused had confessed or what they had revealed. But his remarks are the first time an official has spoken of confessions in cases that have further intensified strains with Washington. He emphasised that “all of those arrested” have Iranian citizenship, a reference to Iran’s longstanding rejection of dual nationality.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Sunday also told the United States to stop interfering in the cases afterPresident George W. Bush called for their immediate release. “The American comments are a very evident example of interfering in our domestic affairs and they should stop these actions,” Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters. “They are Iranian nationals and the relevant authorities, based on Iranian laws, are studying their charges,” said Hosseini. Iran’s top national security official Ali Larijani told Washington on Saturday to stop “exaggerating” the cases of the four US-Iranians, saying it should worry about its own rights abuses.
With the exception of beheading and related atrocities, there is little in the world more vile than taking hostages. Iran and its proxies have been using hostage-taking as a diplomatic, political, and warmaking tool for 28 years. Isn’t it about time that the rest of the world said that enough is enough, and stop doing business as usual with this crowd?