Rooyesh

The Financial Times reports the Iranian state television news channel IRINN has broadcast the first footage of two imprisoned Iranian-Americans, Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh. The station on Monday trailed a programme called “In the Name of Democracy”, which it said it would air on Wednesday and Thursday to highlight individuals and networks linked to the United States. IRINN said the programme would include interviews with Ms Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh, as well as with Ramin Jahanbegloo, a prominent Iranian intellectual imprisoned and freed last year.

Ms Esfandiari, the director of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Centre, was arrested on May 8, three days before Mr Tajbakhsh, an associate of the George Soros Open Society Institute. Fars, the semi-official news agency, said Ms Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh, who have been charged with “acting against national security” and “espionage”, would be shown making confessions. The television trailer showed Mr Tajbakhsh, 45, describing the work of the Open Society Instutute, and Ms Esfandiari, 63, discussing activities being carried out “in the name of dialogue, empowering women and democracy”. She said her role was to “identify speakers” in Iran. Both were dressed in civilian clothes and appeared to be relaxed. The detentions have been seen in Iran as a means to track millions of dollars allocated by the US administration for “democracy promotion” in Iran. While most of the cash has gone to Persian-language broadcasting, some is secret. Iran announced earlier this month it was extending investigations into the cases of Mr Esfandiari and Mr Tajbakhsh after fresh evidence had come to light. Two other Iranian-Americans are facing similar charges. Ali Shakeri, a Californian-based businessman and peace activist, is in jail while Parnaz Azima, a broadcaster with the US-funded Radio Farda, is unable to leave the country after her passport was confiscated. For Iranian television to air confessions would be a revival of a practice – begun originally under the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution – dropped in the mid-1990s because of public scepticism. But Iran did earlier this year show video confessions made by some of the 15 British sailors and marines held for 12 days after being detained in coastal waters off the coast of Iran and Iraq. Mr Jahanbegloo was reportedly filmed after his arrest last year, confessing to collaboration with foreigners to spark a peaceful revolution in Iran. The authorities did not air the footage at the time, although Mr Jahanbegloo on his release walked into a state news agency to admit to links with US bodies.