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Radiofarda – Mahmoud Sadeqi an outspoken lawmaker in Iran has presented a “double urgency motion” to parliament to ban recording and broadcasting forced confessions by the state-run monopolized radio and television network.
On top of banning the practice, the motion proposes six months to three years in jail for those responsible for broadcasting forced confessions.
Furthermore, the state broadcasters should compensate and rehabilitate the victims of forced confession broadcasts, the proposed bill says.
The motion also asserts that if state security officials and agents conduct forced confessions, they must be punished by one to five years ban from serving in public service.
In recent months, the case of a young Iranian, Maziar Ebrahimi, has triggered a barrage of criticism against broadcasting forced confessions on the Islamic Republic’s Radio and Television.
Ebrahimi told the BBC on August 13 that Iranian Intelligence Ministry Agents tortured him and eleven others into confessing on TV that they had assassinated a nuclear scientist in collaboration with Israeli secret agents.
Ebrahimi who is now living in Germany said he and other inmates were released from jail after two years when another government body found out during an investigation that the case against them was fabricated by the Intelligence Ministry.
He also charged that Intelligence Ministry agents got $50,000 from his family only to tell them his whereabouts while he was in jail.
Fifty-two were detained along with Ebrahimi, while all of them were innocent, Tehran’s MP, Mahmoud Sadeqi said.
The Islamic Republic state broadcaster is managed by a chief executive officer directly appointed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and accountable only to him.
The Broadcaster has aired dozens of forced confessions through four decades after the downfall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the establishment of a clergy-dominated Islamic Republic, in 1979.
