Not that anyone would expect much more from Iran….
Secret squads operating under the authority of the Iranian judiciary have used torture to force detained Internet journalists and civil society activists to write self-incriminatory “confession letters,” Human Rights Watch said today.
Evidence obtained by Human Rights Watch confirms that secret squads of interrogators—primarily former intelligence officers purged in the late-1990s by President Mohammed Khatami but now employed by the judiciary—forced the detainees to write these “confession letters” under extreme pressure as a condition for their release on bail. In an attempt to cover up the government’s illegal detention and torture of detainees, interrogators have coerced them to write self-incriminatory letters that describe detention conditions as satisfactory and confess that civil society organizations are part of an “evil project” directed by “foreigners and counter-revolutionaries.”
“The Iranian government shouldn’t think for a minute that anyone will believe in the authenticity of these letters. They’re fooling no one,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “With stunts like these, Tehran is rapidly losing its already meager credibility on human rights.”
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Thank God the United States would never engage in such tactics. Oh wait.
There used to be a time when those seeking freedom under oppressive governments could look toward our nation as a beacon of hope in an otherwise dark world. How times have changed.
Patriots everywhere need to make sure that America reclaims our spot as a leader in the fight for human rights. All of us have an obligation to speak out against these injustices in Iran. But we also have an obligation to clean up the mess in our own affairs.
