By NASSER KARIMI

January 30, 2010

Source:

TEHRAN, — A group of opposition activists went on trial Saturday in Tehran on charges of rioting and conspiring against the ruling system in connection with protests late last year, Iran’s state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency and state Press TV said the 16 defendants who appeared in court Saturday face various charges, ranging from plotting against the establishment to violating security regulations, linked to anti-government demonstrations on Dec. 27.

That day, at least eight people were killed and hundreds more were arrested during clashes between opposition activists and security forces. The violence was the worst since authorities launched a harsh crackdown immediately after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June.

IRNA quoted a prosecutor identified only by the last name of Farahani as saying in court that the defendants have confessed to spying, planning bomb attacks and damaging public and private properties. He also said the defendants sent videos on the clashes between protesters and Iranian police to the “foreign hostile networks,” IRNA reported.

The trial comes amid a sweeping crackdown by Iran’s clerical leaders against opposition activists in a bid to crush the challenge that has emerged to their rule in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June.

The hardline government has tried more than 100 political activists since August, sentencing more than 80 people to prison terms and handing down 11 death sentences.

On Thursday, the authorities hanged two men who had been convicted of belonging to “counterrevolutionary and monarchist groups,” plotting to overthrow “the Islamic establishment” and planning assassinations and bombings.

They men were arrested months before the election.

But they were put on the same mass trial as around 100 opposition activists, protesters and politicians who were arrested in the postelection crackdown – an attempt by the leadership to show that the political opposition is in league with violent armed groups in a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the Islamic system.

Despite the crackdown, opposition activists have continued to hold sporadic, large street rallies. The opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the June election was fraudulent and call for his removal – though some in the movement have expanded to criticize Iran’s clerical leadership.