MR. KELLY: …we, of course, are watching very closely what’s happening in Iran. We have said consistently that the regime in Iran has to respect the will of the Iranian people and respect their fundamental human rights. I think you know that one of the detainees on trial right now in the revolutionary court is an American citizen, Kian Tajbakhsh. He has not been given a lawyer. We believe the charges that he’s facing are without foundation. And we, of course, have consistently called for his release.
Mr. Tajbakhsh poses absolutely no threat to the Iranian Government or to its national security. He played absolutely no role in the election, and he’s a scholar. As I said yesterday, he has really devoted his life to promoting understanding between the Iranian people and the American people. And he’s scrupulously stayed politically neutral.
And I’ll just close by saying that the world is watching what’s going on in Iran right now, and we will bear witness to what’s going on.
[Full transcript]
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Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, US State Department
US State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly emphasized on August 25 that the United States government would “obviously be very concerned” if reports of official charges being lodged against Kian in the latest show trial are true, telling reporters:
MR. KELLY: …we have been concerned about [Kian Tajbakhsh’s] detention. We’ve been trying to get information through the Swiss Embassy on him. We have called repeatedly for his release. And this is a man who has worked for many years to help build understanding between the Iranian people and the American people through his scholarly work…”
[Full transcript]
In a report by the Associated Press, the 4th Revolutionary Court show trial prosecutor was reported to have read out charges against Kian including “contact with foreign elements.” Kian was quoted as saying that “since I’ve had no contacts with any headquarters inside and outside the country, I have no evidence to prove foreign interference.”
[Full Article]
BBC News has posted a video report on the 4th Revolutionary Court show trial featuring Kian.
This tehranbureau.com analysis of the show trials mentioning Kian claims that:
“Once again, the “indictment” was not a legal document, but a political manifesto of the hardliners, almost all of which had been published over the past few years by the daily newspaper Kayhan, the mouthpiece of the security-intelligence apparatus, and Fars News Agency, which operates more like a propaganda machine.”
[Full analysis]
An article in The New Yorker entitled “The Iran Show” about the show trials notes that:
“It is one thing to persuade citizens that a narrow band of apparatchiks are enemies of the state. It is quite another to claim that a political agenda with broad support—for popular sovereignty, human rights, due process, freedom of speech—has been covertly planted by foreigners… Forced confessions, so effective in [previous years], convey little more than illegitimacy when they are used against an opposition that is asking for the counting of votes and the rule of law. Today’s show trials are a sign of how much Iran has changed in the past thirty years, and how poorly its regime has kept pace.”
[Full article]
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued a public statement demanding that the Iranian government release Kian immediately:
CLINTON: The United States is deeply concerned about the welfare of our American citizens who have been detained or are missing in Iran. We once again urge Iran’s leadership to quickly resolve all outstanding American citizen cases.
This includes the case of the American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh, who has spent his career working to enhance mutual understanding between Iran and the United States. The government of Iran should immediately release Mr. Tajbakhsh from detention and allow him to depart Iran to continue his academic pursuits…
Our goal is to ensure the safe return of all our missing or unjustly detained American citizens to the United States as quickly as possible so that they can be reunited with their families.”
[Full statement]
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Iran Arrests, Kian Tajbakhsh, US State Department
As reported in this CNN article, three independent United Nations human rights experts have accused Iran of torturing confessions from detainees charged with fomenting political unrest. The article mentions Kian as follows:
“Iran is conducting a mass trial of about 100 Iranian defendants in its Revolutionary Court. Reformist politicians, lawyers and journalists are among those accused of protesting in an attempt to overturn government leadership.
Among the defendants are Seyyed Mohammad Abtahi, a former Iranian vice president; Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian reporter for Newsweek magazine; and Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar.”
[Full article]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, show trials, televised show trials, UN, human rights, torture, Seyyed Mohammad Abtahi
The US State Department has issued another statement calling for Kian’s release. Deputy Spokesperson Robert Wood told reporters:
MR. WOOD: Well, let me just say this. The United States condemns the arbitrary arrest, harassment, and detentions that are continuing to take place in Iran. Among those on trial are students, lawyers, human rights activists, journalists, academics, as well as ordinary citizens who are simply seeking their universal right to express themselves peacefully and live their lives free of intimidation. Of particular concern is the continued detention of Iranian American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh. We urge Iran’s leadership to release Mr. Tajbakhsh without further delay. The Iranian Government’s decision to hold individuals such as Kian Tajbakhsh on groundless charges and without the benefit of legal representation clearly violates its international obligations.
[Full text of US State Department press briefing]
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Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, Kian Tajbakhsh, show trials, televised show trials, US, US State Department
This LA Times article mentions Kian in the context of the second round of show trials in Iran on Saturday:
“…By provocatively showcasing confessions by the French citizen, Iranian American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and Iranian Canadian Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, as well as by British and French embassy staffers, the trials will almost certainly further Iran’s diplomatic isolation, highlight its sometimes erratic political system and reduce its leverage just as the West and Tehran are considering talks on resolving differences over the Iranian nuclear program…”
[Full article: Trial of protesters seems only to hurt Iran, analysts say]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, Newsweek, televised show trials, LA Times, embassy staffers
Kian’s friend Pamela Kilpadi has published an editorial in the Daily Times of Pakistan:
“[Kian’s] only apparent “crime” has been to dare live his life as an independent American Iranian scholar in Iran… [He] was swept up in a sudden, unimaginable convulsion — Iran’s greatest political and popular upheaval since the 1979 revolution. As award-winning journalist and Iran scholar Robin Wright recently noted: “Although embryonic, today’s public resolve [in Iran] is reminiscent of civil disobedience in colonial India before independence or in the American Deep South in the 1960s.” The regime lashed out viciously…
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death,” Orwell wrote in 1984. “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
Painfully, the details of where Kian has been taken, by whom, and for how long remains unclear. What is clear is that the struggle for the freedom of Kian and other innocent victims of official repression is also the struggle for our own. Our own freedom of thought, and our own future.
Orwell’s warnings are as relevant today as ever. If we, as individuals and as members of society, fail to stand up for what we believe is right, we consent to wearing an ugly mask. And our face grows to fit it.”
[Full article: Orwell’s warnings]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Pamela Kilpadi, Daily Times
Washington Post reporter Tara Bahrampour has written this piece about the cases of Kian and Canadian Iranian Maziar Bahari:
“They are trying to make a case to their own constituents, and to international constituents, that what has taken place has a foreign element behind it, so dual nationals, people with ties to Western NGOs, are targets,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a friend of Tajbakhsh. “I don’t believe for a second that they genuinely perceive Kian to be a threat to national security.”…
Friends said he [Kian] had purposely avoided the election-related turmoil, even abstaining from voting. “He felt confident there was no rationale for him to be imprisoned,” Sadjadpour said. Two days after the vote, Tajbakhsh wrote to him in an e-mail: “I’m keeping my head down. I have nothing journalistic to add to all the reports that are here.”…
“I can guess that they were digging into the velvet revolution file, and they needed a credible voice to talk about this velvet revolution, and the only person who was there was Kian,” [Haleh Esfandiari] said. “I’ve heard they have rooms full of charts about universities, think tanks, NGOs and are then drawing parallels from Georgia, Ukraine and so on. And then they go after truly, truly innocent people like Kian.”…
[Full article: With Iran Blaming West, Dual Citizens are Targets]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, Washington Post, Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Haleh Esfandiari
WASHINGTON (AP) Sting is calling for the release of political prisoners in Iran and lashing out against the country’s human rights violations. In a statement, the British rock star specifically called on Iran to release prominent Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh.
[Full Article]
This Economist article entitled It’s far from over mentions Kian among other “prominent Iranians” to have been arrested.
Technorati Tags:
Ahmadinejad, Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, show trials, televised show trials, The Economist
During an official visit to Kenya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on the cases of Kian and Canadian Iranian Maziar Bahari:
…”It is a show trial, there’s no doubt about it,” Clinton told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in a wide-ranging interview to be broadcast on his “GPS” program Sunday.
“It demonstrates I think better than any of us could ever say that this Iranian leadership is afraid of their own people, and afraid of the truth and the facts coming out.”…
Those on trial include Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who has dual citizenship in Iran and Canada, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar. The trial, which began over the weekend, is scheduled to resume Saturday, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
This week, the State Department issued a statement expressing deep concern for Tajbakhsh…”
[Full article Clinton says trial show Iran is ‘afraid of its own people’]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, Newsweek, Hillary Clinton, Fareed Zakaria, CNN
Payvand Iran News has published this article mentioning Kian in Iran’s show trials:
“The indictment devoted an entire paragraph to Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar who had previously been forced to give a televised confession while he was detained from May to September 2007. He was released on bail in September 2007, and was rearrested on July 9, 2009.
“It is clear that Iran’s rulers are using this farce of a trial not just to punish those in custody, but also to intimidate anyone who speaks out against injustice,” [Joe] Stork [of Human Rights Watch] said. “There is nothing quite like a show trial and televised confessions to demonstrate the authoritarian tendencies of those running the government.”
[Full article Iran: Show Trial Exposes Arbitrary Detention]
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Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, Kian Tajbakhsh, televised show trials, Payvand, Human Rights Watch, Joe Stork
US State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood told reporters the following at the August 4 press briefing:
I’d like to give you an update on this detained Iranian American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh. We are deeply concerned of reports that Iranian American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh was recently charged by an Iranian court without the benefit of a lawyer. Given that the charges facing Mr. Tajbakhsh are without foundation, we call on Iran’s leadership to release Mr. Tajbakhsh without delay. He has played absolutely no role in the election and poses no threat to the Iranian Government or its national security. As an independent academic, Mr. Tajbakhsh has always sought out political neutrality.
The right to due process in Iran, which includes the right to legal representation, is not only addressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Iran is a signatory, it is also ratified in its own constitution. So the world is watching what is happening in Iran and will bear witness.
[Full briefing]
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Kian Tajbakhsh, Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, show trials, televised show trials, US, US State Department
Kian’s friends Chandana Mathur and Dermot Dix have published an editorial about Kian in the Irish Times: Paying a high price for returning to live in Iran
Here is an excerpt from the article:
It is true that Kian has many friends and associates around the world, including in Ireland. But they are scholars and educators like ourselves, not military strategists seeking to topple distant governments. Kian is being forced to pay a heavy price for a lifetime of simultaneous translation, for the years spent teaching polarised peoples to understand and respect each other.
We would like to see Iran as Kian has taught us to see her, as a nation that values her intellectuals and protects the rights of her people. We hope that the coming days will prove him right.
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Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, Kian Tajbakhsh, show trials, televised show trials, Irish Times
“…The indictment devoted an entire paragraph to Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar who had previously been forced to give a televised confession while he was detained from May to September 2007. He was released on bail in September 2007, and was rearrested on July 9, 2009.
“It is clear that Iran’s rulers are using this farce of a trial not just to punish those in custody, but also to intimidate anyone who speaks out against injustice,” Stork said. “There is nothing quite like a show trial and televised confessions to demonstrate the authoritarian tendencies of those running the government.” …
[Full Report]
Technorati Tags:
Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, Kian Tajbakhsh, show trials, televised show trials
The AFP wire service reported the following based on the US State Dept briefing mentioning Kian. An excerpt is shown below.
“The United States called Tuesday on Iran to release immediately Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, who was put on trial last weekend with around 100 Iranians accused of rioting.
…”
[Full Article]
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Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian Election, Kian Tajbakhsh, show trials, televised show trials, US
Al Jazeera has published this piece mentioning Kian in the context of US statements on Ahmadinejad’s inauguration:
[Full article US: Ahmadinejad is elected leader]
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Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, US, Ahmadinejad
The Associated Press has published a story about the show trial in Iran featuring some 100 political prisoners including Kian. The article notes the following about Kian specifically (as reprinted here in the New York Times):
“… Among the others on trial Saturday were two foreign citizens — Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh and Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who holds Iranian and Canadian citizenship
…
Pamela Kilpadi, a researcher who is working on a book with Tajbakhsh, said: ”I know for a fact that Kian played absolutely no role in post-election incidents in Iran. He even said he would not vote in the elections. As an independent academic Kian has always sought political neutrality.”
”These current statements have been forced under duress from someone being held in an undisclosed location without access to a lawyer, family or friends, in violation of the human rights treaties to which Iran is supposedly a signatory,” Kilpadi told the AP by e-mail. ”This is a disgrace to humanity.”
…
There was no information on when the trial would end or when a verdict could be expected…
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Iran Arrests, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, show trials, televised show trials, Pamela Kilpadi, Newsweek, Associated Press, The New York Times
Kian’s friend Ibrahim Al-Marashi has published the following piece in the Guardian.
An American in Iran
When I was accused of being a western spy, Kian Tajbakhsh befriended me. Now he’s been jailed in Iran for the same offence
Technorati Tags:
Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, The Guardian, Ibrahim Al-Marashi
This Associated Press article reports on the release of 140 prisoners and fate of the remaining prisoners including Kian:
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly called for detainees’ release, saying the U.S. was “deeply concerned about all these arbitrary arrests, detentions and harassments that have taken place in Iran, as well as the persistent lack of due process.” He also expressed concern over three detained foreign citizens — Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who holds Iranian and Canadian citizenship, and a French scholar, Clotilde Reiss.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, promised on Monday that the public prosecutor would review the situation of all the postelection detainees within a week and decide whether to release or bring them to trial, the state news agency IRNA reported. State television said Tuesday that Ahmadinejad urged Shahroudi to accelerate making decision on the fate of detainees.
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US State Department press briefing, July 28th
QUESTION: Just a question on Iran. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports that Supreme Leader Khamenei has ordered a detention center closed. Is this a good thing?
MR. KELLY: I’ve only seen reports of it, so it’s hard for me to – or hard for us at the State Department to comment on something that we’ve only seen reports of. I mean, what I will say is, of course, that we’re deeply concerned about all these arbitrary arrests, detentions, and harassments that are – that have taken place in Iran, as well as the persistent lack of due process.
All along, we’ve called upon Iran’s leadership to release all of those who have been detained unjustly, and so allow them to be reunited with their families. In addition, we’re very concerned about some detentions of foreign citizens, including an American scholar that we’ve talked about here before, Kian Tajbakhsh, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, and there’s a French scholar, Clotilde Reiss.
They have been detained, we think, without any grounds. And we find this unacceptable and we’re urging Iran to resolve all outstanding foreign national cases…
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Ayatollah Khamenei, detention, Iran Arrests, iran crackdown, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, Maziar Bahari, Clotilde Reiss, arbitrary+arrests
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Sting makes appeal for Kian Tajbakhsh and Iranian detainees.