Iranian Dissenters Quashed

Iranian political dissenters were arrested and many were slain during the anti-election demonstrations. Now a former vice-president involved in the demonstrations has been sentenced to prison.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi is a former vice-president who served under Mohammad Khatami from 1997 until 2005. The six-year sentence for the alleged crimes was handed down on Monday Nov 23 as reported by AlJazeera online. The charges against Abtahi, who is also a senior Iranian cleric, include insulting the president, propaganda against the regime, plotting against the security of the nation and attending an illegal demonstration. This is the most visible face so far of those tens of thousands who attended the demonstrations and of the unknown number of demonstrators who were slain for the crime of demonstrating against what many of the population considered a rigged election. Abtahi has 20 days to file an appeal of the sentence and is in the meantime still free on $700,000 bail. The only Iranian English language newspapers reporting the sentencing appear to be those based outside the country, primarily in London. One quote from Al Jazeera ascribed to a London based Iranian newspaper editor states the obvious conclusion.

Nazanin Ansari, the editor of Kayhan newspaper, based in London, said: "They are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the opposition ... it is not as if Abtahi has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bail and is free to leave prison, he is not and will not be a free man."

Many in the Western World would also be under the threat of prison terms for some of the crimes which Abtahi was accused of and then sentenced for.