The mullahs shooting the messenger rather than thinking about the message is further indication of their estrangement from their own people.
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 12/04/2002 6:20:39 PM PST by MadIvan
Three opinion pollsters have gone on trial in Iran after releasing a survey showing that most Iranians support re-opening dialogue with America. The results go against the fundamentalist regime's policy on the "Great Satan".
Behrouz Geranpayeh, Hossein Ghazian and Abbas Abdi face a 400-page indictment after their institutes carried out a poll for the foreign affairs and national security committee of the Iranian parliament.
They reported that 75 per cent of Iranians favoured reopening official contacts with America, even though the two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1979.
They were arrested shortly afterwards and have gone on trial at Branch 1410 of the Court for Government Workers, where Judge Saeed Mortazavi, who has sent dozens of reformists to jail, presided under the gaze of several portraits of the two Supreme Leaders of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollahs Khomeni and Khamenei.
On the trial's first day several hours were spent detailing the charges against Ghazian. As managing director of the Ayandeh Research Institute, he is accused of "secret and unpermitted connections with institutes and agents related to foreign information and security services and collected and sold information against the country to the benefit of the enemy of the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran and received financial aid for these activities."
These included links with a British embassy official in Teheran, keeping a secret e-mail address, and receiving invitations to "CIA centre" Columbia University in New York and "State Department centre" Stanford University in California. Manchester University was also mentioned. The judge said it was a "den of counter-revolutionaries".
The defendants are also accused of espionage, having unpermitted connections with the Gallup polling company, and creating false information for the purposes of abetting anti-revolutionary forces. They admit having meetings with foreign universities but deny this is a criminal act.
Geranpayeh is head of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture's research institute and Abdi, a hostage-taker at the American embassy siege in 1979, is a prominent reformist journalist.
The mullahs shooting the messenger rather than thinking about the message is further indication of their estrangement from their own people.
Regards, Ivan
Gee, why would people have any problems with a great sytem of government like that???
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