One of Iran's most prominent pro-reform figures admitted fomenting unrest and asked for the country's forgiveness Tuesday during the mass trial of activists detained in the postelection crackdown in a confession that the opposition said was coerced. The courtroom statement by Saeed Hajjarian – who is considered one of the reform movement's top architects and who was shot in the head in a 2000 assassination attempt – was the latest dramatic confession in the month-old trial that the opposition has compared to Josef Stalin's “show trials” of opponents in the Soviet Union. More than 100 defendants are on trial, accused of trying to overthrow Iran's clerical leadership in a “velvet revolution” by fomenting huge protests over the disputed June 12 presidential election, which the opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Also among the defendants who appeared Tuesday was Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American academic. The prosecutor read out charges against him including espionage, contact with foreign elements and acting against national security. Tajbakhsh appeared to try to speak broadly about foreign interference in Iran, saying “undeniably this was a goal of the US and European countries to bring change inside Iran” and that “the root cause of the riots are found outside the borders.”
