US Condemns Burma on Aung San Suu Kyi Decision

Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (2009 file photo)

The United States has criticized Burma's Supreme Court for not releasing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from her extended house arrest.

A State Department official told reporters the Burmese court's ruling Friday was "purely political." He noted that the U.S. has consistently urged the ruling military in Burma to free its political prisoners.

New York Congressman Joe Crowley, a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, issued a statement calling Aung San Suu Kyi's continuing house arrest "a sham from day one." Crowley said the military must face consequences for violating the human rights of the Burmese people.

He said it is time for the United States to fully implement increased targeted sanctions against officials in Than Shwe's military regime under the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act.

Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted last year of violating the terms of her detention when she gave shelter to an American man who swam to her lakeside Rangoon house uninvited.

Burma's Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal against the latest extension of her house arrest.

She initially was sentenced to three years of hard labor. But Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the ruling military, commuted her sentence to just an extra 18 months of house detention.

Aung San Suu Kyi's legal team argued that the extension was not lawful, because it was based on provisions from the 1974 constitution, which is no longer in force.

Her lawyers say they will pursue a final, special appeal.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said he is "disappointed" Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal was dismissed. He called for the release of all political prisoners in Burma and for their participation in its political process.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "appalled and saddened" at the court's decision. He also said the sole purpose of Aung San Suu Kyi's trial was to prevent her from taking part in this year's elections.

The government of Singapore issued a statement urging talks between the Burmese military, Aung San Suu Kyi and other political groups ahead of the elections. Singapore said those talks would offer the best chance for "national reconciliation and the long-term political stability" of Burma.

Burma's military leaders said they will hold elections later this year, for the first time in two decades.

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy won the 1990 election, but the military refused to relinquish power. The military has kept her under some form of detention for 14 of the last 20 years.

Vietnam Sentences Dissident to Prison

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By SETH MYDANS and MARK McDONALD

BANGKOK — The first in a series of trials of dissidents in Vietnam concluded Monday, when a court convicted a former army officer of subversion for pro-democracy activities and sentenced him to five-and-a-half years in prison.

The conviction of the former officer, Tran Anh Kim, 60, comes as the government is tightening controls on dissent in advance of a Communist Party congress in early 2011.

Mr. Kim is one of five activists who were arrested in June and at first, faced the less serious charge of spreading antigovernment propaganda. But this month, Mr. Kim and at least two others were charged with the capital crime of subversion. Prosecutors asked for a lighter sentence in view of the military background of Mr. Kim, a wounded veteran.

Sentences in political cases are generally determined in advance, and the trial, held in Thai Binh Province in northeastern Vietnam, took just four hours. The other four campaigners are scheduled to go to trial next month. The most prominent among them is Le Cong Dinh, 41, an American-educated lawyer who has defended human rights campaigners and has called for multiparty democracy.

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The others are Nguyen Tien Trung, who recently studied engineering in Paris; Tran Huynh Duy Thuc; and Le Thang Long. They are among dozens of dissidents and bloggers who have been arrested in recent months as the government attempts to set the boundaries of public speech before the party congress, which is held every five years, diplomats and political analysts said.

In court, the defiant Mr. Kim acknowledged his membership in the Democratic Party of Vietnam, an outlawed group of small affiliated parties and opposition factions. In June, Mr. Kim attempted to hang a sign at his house saying, “Office of the Democratic Party of Vietnam.”

He also said he had joined Bloc 8406, a group of petitioners calling for democratic elections and a multiparty state. The petition was released on April 8, 2006 — hence its name — but Mr. Kim was not one of the original 118 signatories.

A principal architect of Bloc 8406, Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest, was convicted and sentenced along with four other dissidents in March 2007. He received an eight-year prison term for “overtly revolutionary activities” and “conspiring with reactionary forces,” according to the official Vietnam News Agency.

Journalists who watched the proceedings on closed-circuit television quoted Mr. Kim as saying he had been fighting for “democratic freedom and human rights through peaceful dialogue and nonviolent means.”

“I am a person of merit,” he was quoted as saying. “I did not commit crimes.”

Judge Tran Van Loan said Mr. Kim had participated in what he called an organized crime against the state, cooperating with “reactionary Vietnamese and hostile forces in exile.”

“This was a serious violation of national security,” the judge said.

The site of Mr. Kim’s trial, Thai Binh, was likely to resonate with government loyalists and dissidents alike. The coastal province is the birthplace of some of the country’s legendary military heroes and political leaders, including Politburo members, senior generals and Vietnam’s first cosmonaut, Pham Tuan.

But Thai Binh also has been home to some of the most ardent critics of the government, notably the writer Duong Thu Huong, whose banned novel, Paradise of the Blind, was a searing description of life in postwar Vietnam, and Thich Quang Do, a Buddhist monk who has been a critic of the Communist government for decades.

In 1997, farmers and workers in Thai Binh staged a violent rebellion against local party leaders over tax increases, land seizures and the misuse of public funds. The violence unnerved the central government, which dismissed a number of party bosses in Thai Binh but also instituted a harsh crackdown there on public gatherings and political dissent.

Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok, and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong.

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Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo sentenced to 11 years on 'subversion' charges

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By Steven Mufson
Friday, December 25, 2009; A10

BEIJING -- China's leading dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday after a court found the 53-year-old literary scholar guilty of "inciting subversion to state power" through his writings and role in Charter 08, a petition advocating human rights, free speech and an end to one-party rule.

The sentencing sent a signal that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to stifle domestic political critics, especially those who seek to organize their fellow Chinese. And it provided evidence that political modernization might not go hand in hand with China's economic modernization, contrary to past predictions by Chinese dissidents, U.S. business executives, political theorists and proselytizers of the Internet age.

According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group, Liu's sentence was longer than any other sentence handed down for "inciting subversion" since the charge was established in the 1997 reform of the criminal law.

"You can think democracy, you can talk democracy, but you can't do democracy," said Li Fan, director of the World and China Institute in Beijing.

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Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Open Society Institute and co-founder of GlobalVoicesOnline.org, said the case "certainly seems to reflect a high level of sensitivity and very low level of tolerance."

A decade ago, she said, "there was a great deal of optimism" about village elections, plans for separating party and state functions, and talk of other political reforms. Many analysts said a more open society would yield a more open political system.

But reform initiatives have stalled, and there was little evidence of openness in the handling of Liu's case this week.

His trial, which took place at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, lasted less than three hours Wednesday. The judge rejected evidence the defense sought to introduce and limited the speaking time of Liu's attorneys to 14 minutes, according to one of Liu's brothers. He said that 18 mostly young people were allowed to listen to the proceedings but that Liu's wife, Liu Xia, could not. She did attend the Friday sentencing, marking only the third time she had seen her husband since he was detained more than a year ago.

The judge also barred journalists and foreign diplomats from attending. In contrast to the 1990s, when visits by leading international envoys often brought the release of dissidents, China has ignored calls by the Obama administration and other Western governments for Liu's release.

After the sentencing, which foreign diplomats were also barred from attending, Gregory May, first secretary with the U.S. Embassy, told reporters outside the courthouse that the United States was concerned about Liu's case and would continue to push for his release.

Chinese diplomats have rejected such calls as interference in China's affairs.

Mo Shaoping, a prominent human rights lawyer, said that the success of the 2008 Olympics, the economic crisis in the West and the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover had made the Chinese government "more and more arrogant" toward international critics.

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Worse yet, Mo said, the judge had violated China's procedures.

"China has solved the past problem that there were no existing laws. Now we have more than 200 laws and over a thousand regulations. We have laws that cover every aspect of social affairs," said Mo, who could not represent Liu because he also had signed Charter 08. "But the government doesn't follow those laws, not even the laws they wrote themselves."

One of Liu's brothers, Liu Xiaoxuan, said the prosecutors focused on 350 words collected from half-dozen of the 490 articles Liu wrote over a five-year period. In those excerpts, Liu Xiaobo sharply criticized the Chinese government, calling it a dictatorship that sought to use patriotism to fool people into loving the government rather than the country, the brother said.

Liu Xiaoxuan, a professor of material engineering at Guangdong University of Technology, said his brother told the court that the country's "progress can't cover up the mistakes you've made and the flaws of your institutions."

Other signatories of Charter 08 also are facing government harassment. Zhang Zuhua, primary drafter of the manifesto, is under heavy police surveillance at his home. Others have lost prize research or teaching posts.

The Communist Party has always been wary of people seeking to organize outside of officially recognized groups, whether for political or other causes. Last week, security officials formally arrested Zhao Lianhai, who was already in detention for organizing families whose babies were affected by last year's tainted-milk scandal.

Many foreign diplomats see the Christmas Day sentencing of Liu Xiaobo as timed to minimize outside attention, with the world focused on celebrations. In 2006, the Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was convicted of "subversion" three days before Christmas. In 2007, AIDS activist Hu Jia was arrested five days after Christmas.

The Charter 08 declaration was modeled on Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 drive, which eventually contributed to the end of communist rule there. Started with about 300 signatures, it has gathered thousands more online.

Among other things, Charter 08 says: "For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an 'enlightened overlord' or an 'honest official' and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy and the rule of law."

On Friday, one of the signers of Charter 08 arrived outside the courthouse where Liu was sentenced to show support for Liu.

Yang Licai, 38, said he was disappointed by the sentence, and saw it as evidence that, despite the government's declarations of a "harmonious society," Chinese still lack basic freedoms. Surrounded by plainclothes police, Yang said he did not fear arrest for being outspoken.

"Right now I am not afraid," he said. "I am willing to shoulder my responsibility."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

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Iranian-American academic gets 12 years in unrest - washingtonpost.com

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By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 5:22 PM

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran ignored appeals by Hillary Rodham Clinton and even rock star Sting and sentenced an Iranian-American academic to 12 years in prison Tuesday for his alleged role in anti-government protests after the country's disputed presidential election.

The sentence for Kian Tajbakhsh was the longest prison term yet in a mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, activists and journalists in the postelection turmoil.

At the same time, Iran allowed another defendant to leave the country - Canadian-Iranian Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist arrested in the same crackdown who had been freed on bail over the weekend.

Bahari joined his British wife, who is in the last days of her pregnancy, in London, Newsweek said on its Web site Tuesday. It was the first word that Bahari had left Iran.

The circumstances of his return to London were not immediately known, but it is unlikely he could have left without the consent of Iranian authorities. Newsweek refused further comment, and Iranian officials could not be reached for explanation.

"We can only imagine what Mr. Bahari has been through during the past months and the anguish that his wife has experienced during this difficult period," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. "Canada commends all journalists who risked their lives by reporting on the Iranian elections from within the country."

Bahari's release could be a concession by Iran to international pressure. But Tajbakhsh's heavy sentence signaled that Tehran was sticking to a tough line overall on the political unrest. It came amid calls in Iran for the prosecution of the most senior opposition figure and suggestions that three American hikers, detained after accidentally crossing into Iran, could face charges.

Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, was arrested by security forces at his Tehran home July 9 - the only American detained in the crackdown that crushed giant street protests by hundreds of thousands of people after the June 12 election. The opposition claims the vote was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The security sweep went far beyond protesters on the streets, snatching up rights activists and journalists, as well as pro-reform politicians. The government accused them of organizing the protests on behalf of Iran's foreign enemies to foment a "velvet revolution" to overthrow the Islamic leadership.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian C. Kelly said Tajbakhsh should be released immediately, saying he poses no threat to the Iranian government or its national security.

Washington has repeatedly denounced his arrest. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed in August for his release, and he was specially named in a call by the British rock star Sting to free all political prisoners in Iran.

"Family and friends of Iranian-American detainee Kian Tajbakhsh are shocked and outraged by the news," said Pam Kilpadi, a friend of Tajbakhsh who is working on a book with him. She described the charges as "baffling."

"As an independent scholar Kian is neither a member of the Iranian reformist movement nor in contact with any foreign headquarters inside or outside Iran, and has had no involvement in pre- or postelection unrest," said Kilpadi, a doctoral researcher at Britain's University of Bristol currently based in Cambridge, Mass.

Tajbakhsh's lawyer, Houshang Azhari, told the official IRNA news agency that he would appeal the conviction on charges of "acting against national security." He said the law prohibited him from divulging the full details of the sentence and would only say it was "more than 12 years."

The appeal could open an avenue for freeing Tajbakhsh. An Iranian-American journalist who was arrested this year, Roxana Saberi, was convicted of espionage but freed on appeal in what was widely seen as a political decision to defuse tensions with Washington.

Tajbakhsh, 47, had been targeted by Iranian authorities before. In 2007, he was arrested on similar charges while working for the Open Society Institution, a pro-democracy organization run by American philanthropist George Soros - a figure Iran has often cited as part of the anti-government plot. He denied the charges and was released after four months in prison.

Afterward, Tajbakhsh left the Open Society Institution and remained with his family in Iran, working on a book.

Weeks after his arrest in July, Tajbakhsh appeared in the mass trial of opposition figures. Many of the defendants delivered courtroom confessions to a plot to topple the government - admissions that opposition groups said were forced from them.

At his turn to speak during an Aug. 25 court session, Tajbakhsh appeared to try to speak only vaguely about foreign interference in Iran, saying that "undeniably this was a goal of the U.S. and European countries to bring change inside Iran" - although he said he had no direct knowledge of any plot.

The court has issued convictions against a few Iranian opposition figures, sentencing them to five or six years - all far shorter than Tajbakhsh's, although three others accused of belonging to what Iran considers terrorist groups were sentenced to death.

"It's obviously completely politically motivated," said Arien Mack, a psychology professor at The New School in New York City, where Tajbakhsh taught urban policy until 2001. She said that since his 2007 arrest, Tajbakhsh had focused on his academic work, avoiding politics.

"As far as I know, he did not even vote in the last election" in Iran, she said.

In addition to Tajbakhsh, Iran holds three American hikers - Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, who were detained in July after straying across the border from Iraq.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday that investigators are still questioning the three and that their fate rests with judicial authorities.

Mottaki gave no other details on the case. But his comments suggested that formal charges could still be possible against the Americans, although Ahmadinejad said in an interview with The Associated Press last month that could ask the judiciary to "take a look at the case with maximum leniency."

They three have been visited by Swiss diplomats who oversee U.S. interests in Iran, and earlier this month, their relatives presented a petition to Iran's U.N. mission in New York asking for their release.

Despite the crackdown, the government has stopped short of indicting the most visible leaders of Iran's opposition reformists, presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, but there have been signs in recent weeks that could change.

Last week, authorities opened an investigation into Karroubi, a possible first step to bringing charges.

On Tuesday, a third of the 290 members of parliament demanded Mousavi be prosecuted. The opposition claims Mousavi is the rightful winner of the election, and his arrest would sharply escalate the confrontation between the reform movement and the government.

According to IRNA, 100 hard-line lawmakers sent a letter to State Prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi saying Mousavi should go on trial because his statements and actions had damaged the "reputation of the Islamic system."

Malaysia: Drop Sedition Charges Against Parliamentarian

Repeal Sedition Act, Used as Political Weapon

August 10, 2009

(New York) - Malaysia's attorney general should immediately drop politically motivated sedition charges against Karpal Singh, a prominent lawyer and opposition member of parliament, Human Rights Watch said today. His trial is to begin on August 12, 2009. Human Rights Watch also urged the government to repeal without delay the colonial-era Sedition Act 1948, long used selectively against the government's political opponents.

On March 17, the government charged Karpal, national chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party, under Section 4 (1)(b) of the Sedition Act. He is accused of using "seditious words" in a February 6 comment to journalists that the legality of a decision to return control of Perak's state government to Malaysia's ruling coalition could be questioned in court. Karpal has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail. If found guilty, Karpal faces up to three years in prison or a fine of up to RM5,000 [US$1,400] or both. As of April, 45 prosecution witnesses were due to take the stand.

"These sedition charges against Karpal are utterly baseless," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Right Watch. "This is just an excuse to remove a powerful political opponent."

Perak was one of five states won, albeit by a razor-thin majority, by opposition candidates who worked in concert to defeat the ruling National Front (Barisan Nasional or BN) coalition in the March 2008 national elections. After several Perak assembly members crossed over to join the BN in January and February 2009, BN regained a majority. Rather than dissolve the state assembly and call for new elections, Sultan Azlan Shah decided in favor of BN, prompting Karpal's call for a court hearing. Suits related to the legitimacy of the newly constituted assembly are still in contention.

This is the second time Karpal has been charged under the Sedition Act. During his 2001 defense of Anwar Ibrahim against corruption charges in 2001, Karpal stated that Anwar's failing health in detention was "due to a high-level conspiracy to poison him with arsenic." The police charged Karpal with sedition, though then-Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail later withdrew the charges.

The Sedition Act defines "seditious tendency" as, "a tendency to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against any ruler or against any government ... to raise discontent or disaffection among the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong [the Malaysian monarch] or of the ruler of any state ... (or) to question any matter, right, status, position, privilege, sovereignty or prerogative established or protected by" certain articles in the Federal Constitution.

Article 181 of the constitution provides that no ruler may be charged in his official capacity in a court of law. Karpal did not suggest that charges should be brought against the sultan but suggested that his decision was subject to judicial review. The Sedition Act states that it is not seditious to "show that any ruler has been misled or mistaken in any of his measures."

BN, which has ruled Malaysia since independence, relies on the Sedition Act as well as the Internal Security Act to repress free expression and assembly to silence and punish its critics.

Human Rights Watch urges that such laws be repealed or reviewed to conform to international standards.

"It's a fallacy to suggest Malaysia needs laws that violate basic rights in order to maintain a peaceful and harmonious society," said Pearson. "Malaysians have time and again proven themselves capable of exercising the basic democratic rights to which they are entitled. It's time their government listened."

General Calls for Mousavi, Khatami, Karroubi Prosecution

As Iran moves to squelch opposition to the disputed June presidential election, the stage has been set for the judiciary to try two defeated candidates and a former president.

A senior official with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Sunday accused Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two defeated candidates whose supporters took to the streets to protest the official vote result, as well as former President Mohammad Khatami of inciting the unrest.

Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the IRGC's political bureau, said it was absolutely vital to defend the integrity of the 30-year-old Islamic Revolution amidst a “Western-backed plot to topple the government through a 'velvet coup',” the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Monday.

"The question is who were the main plotters and agents of this coup. What is the role of Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi in this coup?" he wrote in an article in the weekly IRGC journal.

The official outcome of the presidential vote, which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win by a massive margin, provoked unprecedented, widespread protests.

The crackdown against the street demonstrations resulted in the arrest of thousands of opposition figures, protesters and journalists -- who have been put on trial on charges of plotting to topple the government --, and the deaths of at least 30 people.

During their hearings in the Revolutionary Court, many of the defendants have confessed to aiding foreign countries in the post-vote developments.

Iranian authorities blame world powers, particularly Britain and the US, for the turmoil, and accuse them of instigating the unrest in line with staging a “velvet revolution” in the country.

The trials have raised the ire of the opposition with their public symbols, Mousavi and Khatami, terming the prosecution as a “sham” and claiming the confessions were extracted under torture.

However, the IRGC official believes the affirmation of guilt can be used by the judiciary to convict those who are truly to blame for the “failed coup.”

“If Mousavi, Khatami, [Ayatollah Mohammad] Mousavi Khoeiniha (Iran's prosecutor general after the victory of the revolution in 1979) and Karroubi are the main suspects believed to have been behind the velvet coup in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary ... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them according to the law,” Javani was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The remarks also echo increasing pressure by the ruling system on the opposition who alleges that the June 12 election was rigged and continues to defy the result.

The vote, hailed by President Ahmadinejad and the Guardian Council, the body tasked with overseeing elections, as the “healthiest” vote in the history of the Revolution, has also presented an influential critic.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts and Chairman of the Expediency Council, has denounced the government's handling of the controversy over the election and urged officials to release the protesters still in custody.

However, Rafsanjani, who is to deliver a sermon at the Tehran University prayer hall on Friday, has been harshly criticized for his stance by supporters of President Ahmadinejad and a number of officials in the Principlist camp.

An Iranian lawmaker, Nasrollah Torbai, on Sunday moved to quiet the criticism by boasting the credentials of Ayatollah Rafsanjani and the leaders of the opposition.

“It has taken years and a vast amount of political capital has been spent on the likes of Mousavi, Hashemi-[Rafsanjani], Khatami, Karroubi and [Hojjatoleslam Ali-Akbar] Nateq-Nouri to grow and serve the Revolution,” Torabi was quoted by Parleman News website as saying.

“Why is it that the trust of the people is not regarded as the most valuable treasure in the country?” he queried.

Ayatollah Rafsanjani had said during his Friday Prayers sermon on July 17 that the ambiguities surrounding the presidential election had led to the distrust of the Iranian nation in the establishment.

"Doubt has been created," he said. "There are two currents; one has no doubt and is moving ahead. And the other is a large portion of the wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt."

MD/HGH

Iran Tries 2nd Group Accused of Overthrow Plot

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 9, 2009

TEHRAN, Aug. 8 -- A second group of dissidents, demonstrators and embassy workers appeared in court Saturday as prosecutors pressed their case against opposition members accused of plotting to topple Iran's religious leadership.

More than 100 defendants were put on trial Saturday, a week after a similar hearing involving other groups of politicians, journalists and protesters. State television showed several pro-opposition politicians and demonstrators in gray prison uniforms sitting in the dock, guarded by police officers.

Outside the courthouse, brief skirmishes broke out between police and family members of the accused.

Most of the 40-page indictment focused on what prosecutors said was an attempt by Western nations -- particularly the United States and Britain -- to inspire a "velvet revolution" in the turmoil surrounding Iran's presidential election in June.

Even before the voting, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps had accused two candidates opposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of plotting a nonmilitary overthrow modeled after the popular uprisings that toppled governments in Georgia and Ukraine. The guards are widely thought to be behind the arrests and court case, which is playing out in Iranian state media.

"The U.S. is swamped in Iraq and Afghanistan. The possibility to use the military option against the Islamic Republic of Iran has reached its lowest level, so creating basic changes in the structure of Iran's system required covert and soft actions by the West," Iran's deputy prosecutor said, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

People gathered outside the court said government supporters were bused in to fill the few places made available in court to the public.

"None of the family members could get in," said Mahdieh Mohammadi, the wife of Ahmad Zeidabadi, a journalist and critic of the government who was arrested nearly two months ago.

"About 50 women and children waited for hours in the hot sun. Suddenly the police showed up, telling us to leave. But we stayed, and they arrested some of us," she said in a telephone interview.

The prosecutor presented what he said was evidence of a well-planned plot to overthrow Iran's system of religious leadership, building on a theory one of his colleagues had introduced last week.

The prosecutor said social network sites such as Facebook, which has a Farsi version, and Twitter, which postponed maintenance throughout the protests, as well as a recent trial version of a Google Farsi translation program, were part of "beastly efforts" to create a wedge between the Iranian people and their government.

Iranian authorities have filtered Facebook and Twitter since shortly after the election.

Prosecutors said the United States has used exchange programs for artists and academics, support for terrorist groups and a monitoring post based in the U.S. mission in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in its efforts to bring about the velvet revolution.

During the Bush administration, Iran "listening posts" were set up in the Emirates, Turkey and other countries and were manned by Farsi-speaking Iran experts from the State Department.

To support their allegations, Iranian officials often point to a $400 million budget for covert operations passed by Congress in 2008.

Britain "became active as the information arm of the United States and Israel in order to fill the gap of them not being present in Iran," the prosecutor said.

The defendants Saturday included Hossein Rassam, an Iranian employee at the British Embassy who was charged with espionage.

"We gathered information and news so that the British government would have a better understanding of Iran to adopt and implement its policies," Rassam said in a speech broadcast live on state television. He was allowed to return home after the session.

Britain expressed outrage at the charge against Rassam, saying it "directly contradicts assurances we had been given repeatedly by senior Iranian officials," the Associated Press reported.

French national Clotilde Reiss, who was arrested at the airport in Tehran after participating in rallies, issued a short statement asking for clemency, Fars reported.

"I have written a one-page report and submitted it to an official at the cultural department of the French Embassy who was not a diplomat," she was quoted as saying in fluent Farsi. "I should not have taken part in illegal protests. . . . I regret my activities and I apologize to the Iranian nation and the court. I hope they will pardon me."

In a sign that members of Iran's judiciary might be divided over the court case, national prosecutor general Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi said the judiciary had called for the release of Saeed Hajjarian, a supporter of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi who became disabled after an assassination attempt in 2000.

"Following a visit last week by our brothers to Hajjarian, his condition was relatively good, but we still advise that he be kept in his own house," Dori-Najafabadi said, according to Fars.

Others have been more straightforward.

"This court is unacceptable," said Saleh Nikbakht, a lawyer defending former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi and Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, whose alleged confession was televised last week.

Nikbakht said he has not been allowed to meet with his clients or see their files.

"Holding sessions without the presence of the accused's lawyer and also before the investigation process has been completed is illegal," Nikbakht said. "I don't know how many more sessions there will be. Anything seems possible at this point."