The Iranian regime calls for death penalty on reformists

The Times

Iranian prosecutors called for the death penalty in a mass trial of some of the country’s leading reformists, including six former ministers, who stand accused of fomenting riots in the wake of June’s disputed presidential elections.

The prosecution said that the men, including a key instigator of Iran’s reformist movement, had been plotting to topple the Islamic regime. It called the huge street demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud an attempt to stage a “soft coup” against the government.

Reformist critics denounced the proceedings as a “show trial”. It was the fourth mass trial so far in what opponents of the theocratic regime see as a concerted attempt to uproot all moderate opposition to the hardline leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Many of the defendants had held senior positions under the former moderate president Mohammed Khatami, who ruled the country from 1997 to 2005, and who backed the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in his run for president this summer. (Read more...)