Rights Groups Say Iran Televised Hundreds of Forced Confessions

London-based Justice for Iran and the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights have issued a report accusing Iranian state television of broadcasting over 350 coerced confessions in the past decade. The practice, according to the report’s authors, is aimed at stifling dissent and spreading fear among anti-government activists. “IRIB [Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting] operates as a media hub that links a vast network of security, intelligence, military and judicial organizations,” according to the report, released on Thursday. “IRIB is not simply a media organization and by no means an independent one, but rather an organ of state suppression that uses the tools of mass communication.” One of those forced into making a false confession, the report says, is Mazyar Ebrahimi, who claimed to have been tortured along with 11 other people until falsely admitting they had killed Iranian nuclear researchers on behalf of Israel’s Mossad. “Even after confessing to the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists, Ebrahimi was still tortured and pressurized to take responsibility for another unsolved case,” the report said, citing an explosion at a missile factory. He was later freed, leaving Iran for Germany. “It was because of the sheer shock of the numbers that we decided to give [these confessions] more attention,” said Mohammad Nayyeri, a senior figure at Justice for Iran. “You put them together and then, only then, you see how huge the problem is.”