Iran protesters sentenced to death

18/11/2009| IslamWeb

Iran has sentenced five people to death and 81 others to prison terms of up to 15 years in a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest that followed June's disputed presidential election, state television says.

A statement from the justice department, carried on the state-owned IRIB broadcaster, said on Tuesday that the five sentenced to death were members of "terrorist and armed opposition groups".

"So far, 89 of defendants were tried and based on their cases, death sentences were issued for five of them," the statement said.

It said 81 people were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years for offences including security violations, agitating against the Islamic Republic, violating law and order, damaging public and private property, and assaulting civilians and security forces.

Three people were acquitted.

French accused

French academic Clotilde Reiss, who was charged with spying, was questioned before a judge on Tuesday but then allowed to return to the French Embassy, rather than prison, a French official said.

The mass trial of opposition figures and activists began in August, with Iran's rulers accusing them of plotting what they have depicted as a foreign-backed plot to oust them from power.

In the weeks following the June 12 election, the opposition led massive street protests over what it saw as fraud after election authorities declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of a second presidential term.

Rallies drew hundreds of thousands of people and clashes with security forces, marking the most serious internal unrest in Iran since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago.

The opposition says more than 70 people were killed in the unrest following the polls while the government puts the number of dead at about half that figure.

Despite the crackdown, the government has stopped short of indicting the most prominent opposition leaders, such as presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi.

The opposition continues to claim that Mousavi was the rightful winner of the election.

In October, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported that three people had been sentenced to death on charges related to post-election unrest.

They were also accused of affiliation to a pro-monarchy group and the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI), which is an exiled opposition group, seen by both Iran and the US as a terrorist group.

Last month, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the country's appeal courts to review the three death sentences.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iranian riot police take their positions among protesters in central Tehran November 4, 2009.

Al-Jazeera