Iran’s hardline judicial chief has personally interrogated protesters arrested in the crackdown, sparking an international outcry and exacerbating concerns among rights groups about the use of “forced confessions” to instill fear in society.
On Thursday, state television aired a program in which Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who spent his career at the heart of the Islamic Republic’s legal institutions and was subject to sanctions from the European Union and the United States, questioned several people accused by authorities of being “rioters.”
It showed footage of the former intelligence minister and Tehran’s top prosecutor interrogating two detained women, their faces blurred and both shedding tears during questioning.
State television said he spent five hours in a Tehran prison the previous day examining the cases of prisoners arrested during the protests, and was shown interrogating some of the detainees.
State television has aired “confessions” from dozens of individuals accused of attacks on security forces and other acts of violence at demonstrations, according to human rights groups.
“Within days of the protests erupting, state media began broadcasting forced confessions from protesters,” the Norway-based Iranian Human Rights Group said.
It added: “Broadcasting confessions obtained through coercion and torture before legal proceedings violates the defendant’s 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 the central city of Isfahan were “forced to confess” that they had received money from someone to participate in a street protest.
The so-called recognition comes against the backdrop of a crackdown that rights groups say has left thousands dead at rallies that openly challenged the authority of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
-“Work quickly”-
In the latest footage, Eji sits in a room with other officials, beneath a double photo of Khamenei and revolution founder Ruhollah Khomeini. The detainee sat in the chair opposite.
A woman accused of sending messages to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “I did something that even I can’t forgive myself for.”
“For what…for whom,” Ejei said softly, clasping his hands.
Another woman was accused of throwing concrete blocks from a balcony at Tehran security forces.
“I don’t know what happened, why I did something so stupid,” she said after Edge pressed her, “What day is it?” ” and “How do you know they are officers?”
No further evidence of their alleged involvement was shown.
In 2024, U.S.-based anti-nuclear Iran groups described Eje as a “ruthless enforcer of the Islamic Republic with no regard for human rights” and he vowed to have speedy trials for those arrested.
Opposition groups also accuse him of involvement in the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic.
Media freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said he had “the blood of journalists on his hands” and recalled that in 2004 Egui even bit a journalist on the shoulder during a debate.
“If there are people being burned, beheaded and set on fire, then we have to work quickly,” Edge said on Wednesday.
If there were any delays, he said, “it wouldn’t have the same effect.”
sjw/ah/ser
