Forced confession fears as Iran chief justice interrogates protesters

Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief personally interrogated arrested protesters in a crackdown that sparked international outcry, raising fears among rights groups about the use of “forced confessions” to instill fear in society.

State television on Thursday questioned Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who has spent his career at the heart of the Islamic republic’s legal apparatus and has been sanctioned by both the European Union and the United States, along with many whom authorities accuse of being “rebels”.

Footage has been released of the former intelligence minister and Tehran’s chief prosecutor interrogating two detained women, their faces blurred, both of whom burst into tears during interrogation.

State television said he spent five hours in one of Tehran’s prisons examining the cases of prisoners arrested in protests the previous day and interrogating some of the detainees.

State television has broadcast dozens of such “confessions” by people accused of attacks on security forces and other acts of violence at demonstrations, according to rights groups.

“State media began publishing forced confessions of protesters a few days after the protests broke out,” said Norway-based Iran Human Rights.

The statement said, “Publishing confessions obtained under coercion and torture before a lawsuit is filed violates the defendants’ right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

In another example, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said two teenage girls arrested in central Isfahan were cited in “forced confessions” saying they had received money from a person to participate in street protests.

The use of such alleged confessions comes against the backdrop of a crackdown in which the human rights group says thousands have died at rallies that openly challenged the authority of religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

– ‘Work fast’ –

In the latest images, Ejei is seen sitting in a room with other officials, under a double image of Khamenei and the revolution’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini. The prisoner was sitting in the chair opposite.

A woman accused of sending a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I did something that I cannot even forgive myself for.”

“For what… to whom,” Ejei pressed, speaking softly as she clasped her hands together.

Another woman is accused of dropping a concrete block from a balcony on security forces in Tehran.

Ejei “What was your day?” “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why I did such a stupid thing,” he said after pressing her. and “How did you know they were civil servants?”

No other evidence of his involvement in the alleged incident was presented.

The US-based group United Against Nuclear Iran in 2024 described Ejei, who promised speedy trials for those arrested, as a “brutal enforcer of the Islamic republic who disregards human rights”.

Opposition groups also accuse him of involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in the Islamic republic in 1988.

Media freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said “they have the blood of journalists on their hands”, recalling that Ejei even bit a journalist’s shoulder during an argument in 2004.

“If someone burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire, then we have to do our job quickly,” Ejei said Wednesday. he said.

If there were any delays, “it wouldn’t have the same impact,” he said.

sjw/ah/ser