Trial of Protesters Proceeds as Ahmadinejad Endorsed in Iran

GWEN IFILL:

Iran's rulers faced down new evidence of discontent today, as a mass trial of opposition figures got underway. The accused were arrested in the aftermath of June's disputed presidential election.

The declared winner of that vote, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was formally endorsed today by Iran's supreme leader.

Margaret Warner has our lead story.

MARGARET WARNER:

The trial of 100 people accused of post-election violence began on Saturday in Tehran. But today, the wife of one, former Vice President Mohammad Abtahi, charged his televised confession had been coerced. Abtahi alleged opposition leaders conspired to misrepresent the election results as fraudulent.

MOHAMMAD ABTAHI, former vice president, Iran (through translator): The slogan of cheating was a slogan that immediately came up after the election. The political elites, including myself, for a few days made a great mistake, and I stress that that mistake inflicted heavy blows to our country.

MARGARET WARNER:

In her statement, Abtahi's wife told the Associated Press, "I personally believe what he has gone through has made him speak the way he has." She said Abtahi seemed disoriented and was no doubt drugged when she saw him in jail two days before the trial.

Another leading reformer, former Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Atrianfar, was shown confessing the protests were a foreign plot to topple Iran's government.

In a 2006 interview with the NewsHour in Tehran, he described the regime's belief that the U.S. wanted to engineer its ouster.

MOHAMMAD ATRIANFAR, publisher, Shargh Newspaper (through translator): Since the U.S. brought up this "axis of evil" slogan and talked about regime change in Iran — namely, the toppling of the present government — it meant that they are trying to play with our destiny.

MARGARET WARNER:

The accusations of forced confessions came as Iran's supreme leader formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president today.

At the ceremony in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei allowed Ahmadinejad to kiss the shoulder of his robe, a more restrained gesture than four years ago, when Ahmadinejad kissed the leader's hand and cheeks.

Khamenei called the election a "golden page" in Iran's history and derided the protesters for mimicking the tactics of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, Iran Supreme Leader (through translator):

The Islamic ruling system is alive. They must not imagine that, through a false emulation of people's massive turnout in the 1979 Islamic revolution and with a caricature of that revolution, they can harm the greatness of the Islamic revolution and system.

MARGARET WARNER:

Leading election critics boycotted the event — former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, as well as this year's reformist candidates, Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi — and no one from the family of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution, attended.

On another front, in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Iran to confirm that it's holding three missing American hikers. Iranian state TV reported the hikers were seized last Friday when they ignored warnings from border guards and crossed over from northern Iraq.

And for more on these latest developments in Iran, we turn to Abbas Milani, director of Stanford University's Iran Studies Program and co-director of its Iran Democracy Project. Saturday's indictment cited him as a major figure in trying to overthrow the Iranian government.

And Hooman Majd, a journalist and writer who was in Iran in the lead-up to the June election, he's the author of "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran."

Well, let's wrestle with this paradox today. Professor Milani, beginning with you, what explains this latest spectacle, this mass trial, these public confessions?