An Iranian British embassy employee being tried for opposing the results of the Iranian presidential election.
Iran's hardline regime sharply escalated the post-election confrontation on August 8 by putting two foreign embassy staffers and a French teacher on trial alongside dozens of political dissidents. The stepped-up campaign to characterize the widespread unrest since the June 12 presidential election as a foreign-led attempted "soft overthrow" appears to be an effort by the ruling faction to rally the increasingly-splintered conservative base against a popular — and old — enemy: the West.
Following on the heels of an unprecedented mass trial of 100 opposition figures a week ago, Saturday's session at Tehran's Revolutionary Court focused on the British Embassy's chief political analyst, Hossein Rassam, a local staff member of the French Embassy, Nazak Ashfar, and a 24-year-old French teacher, Clotilde Reisse, who was working and studying in Isfahan, according to IRNA, Iran's official news agency. In a vague and rambling indictment, the three were charged with espionage and "acting against the national security," and blamed for inciting "riots." It went on to blame a litany of Western intelligence agencies, media organizations, and software companies — including Israel's Mossad spy agency, Facebook, Twitter, Voice of America, BBC Persia, and even Google's new Persian-to-English translation software — for their roles in the supposed vast conspiracy.
In Tehran, one man in his late 50s said he had demonstrated in front of the British embassy in the aftermath of the election, writing up nationalistic signs like "You are no longer a superpower. We are." He said he has no doubt that Western intelligence agencies played a significant role in fomenting post-election unrest, perhaps even in killing protesters. One 60-year-old veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, who lives in Qom, one of the most openly conservative cities in Iran, whole-heartedly agreed with the regime's scripted story. "Our current problems are all because of foreign agents like the BBC ... This country is now under attack."
However, it appears to be the opposition that continues to come under physical attack by the regime. According to a reformist website Mosharekat, relatives and supporters of the dozens of defendants on trial gathered outside the courthouse and chanted Allahu Akbar (God is Great) until riot police moved in to disperse the crowd with tear gas. The other defendants, who all wore gray prison garb, include Ali Tajernia, a former opposition lawmaker, Shahaboddin Tabatabaei, a leader of the country's largest reformist party, and Ahmad Zeidabadi, a journalist who has written critically of the regime.
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