Iran will tonight broadcast half-hour “confessions” by two Americans who will be shown admitting to plotting the downfall of the Islamic regime.
The broadcast, In the Name of Democracy, purports to show Iranian-born academic Haleh Esfandiari and compatriot Kian Tajbakhsh, both US citizens, admitting to efforts to ignite peaceful regime change.
The broadcast of the clearly coerced interviews on state television revives a tactic from the darkest days of the Islamic revolution.
As head of the Middle East programme at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Centre, Miss Esfandiari, 67, is the most prominent of four American passport holders Iran has seized since relations deteriorated this spring. She has been held in solitary confinement in Teheran’s grim Evin prison since May.
In a short trailer shown on state television on Monday, Ms Esfandiari said she had participated in 2003’s “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, adding she travelled to Iran to bring down its government “in the name of dialogue, in the name of women’s rights, in the name of democracy”.
However, news of the broadcast failed to derail the announcement of a second round of diplomatic talks between Iran and the US over violence in Iraq. A State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said: “Given the situation in Iraq and given Iran’s continued behaviour that is leading to further instability in Iraq, it would be appropriate to have another face-to-face meeting.”
Ms Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, condemned the clip as a KGB-style show trial containing blatant fabrications. Mr Bakhash said his wife never travelled to Georgia. He added other statements did not amount to counter-revolutionary activities: “Haleh is shown saying she brought speakers and Iranian academics to the Wilson Centre. Only a paranoid would suggest this amounts to criminal activity.”
The president of the Wilson Centre, the former US congressman Lee Hamilton, also criticised the broadcast: “She has seen no one from outside the prison during this time: not her mother, not her family, not her lawyer and not any independent international body. Any statements she may make without having had access to her lawyer would be coerced and have no legitimacy or standing.”
Mr Tajbakhsh, a consultant for the pro-democracy George Soros Foundation, said his mission in Iran was to create a conflict between government and the people. He said the Soros Foundation, where the Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown served until this month as vice-president, was “targeting” the Islamic world. Both detainees are also Iranian citizens.
In Washington, the State Department demanded Iran release all US passport holders held for alleged political violations. Washington has not been able to ascertain the location or condition of the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in March.