Iran TV shows detained American-Iranian academics

TEHRAN, July 19 (Reuters) Iran's state television yesterday aired a programme featuring two detained American-Iranian academics accused of endangering national security in the Islamic state.

Iranian officials have suggested Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh may have been involved in a US-backed plot to stage a ''velvet revolution'' in Iran. Rights groups and US officials had deplored Iran's plans to put the pair on television.

But in the first part of a documentary entitled ''In the Name of Democracy'' the two dual nationals, arrested separately in May while visiting Iran, did not make explicit confessions of conspiring to topple Tehran's clerical establishment.

''My job was to identify lecturers through contacting Iranians in America or contacting Iranian intellectuals when visiting Iran,'' said Esfandiari, an academic at the US-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.

''A network of these contacted speech-makers was created ...

The main aim was to identify key figures ... and to connect them to the network,'' said Esfandiari, who wore a black headscarf.

Tajbakhsh, a consultant with the Open Society Institute, founded by billionaire investor George Soros, said: ''My job was to give social, political and cultural advice to the centre about Iran.'' ''The fact that America's Congress financed (the) Soros (centre), shows the American government and the centre share the same views on Iran,'' he added, referring to a sheaf of notes.

Their comments were interspersed with images from popular uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine to imply that the United States had similar plans for Iran. The second part of the documentary will be shown tonight.

Although they are being held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, the interviews with them were conducted in comfortably furnished rooms and both appeared relaxed and healthy.

State television's promotional clips of the programme on Monday outraged Washington which warned that any confessions which were broadcast would have no legitimacy.

Iran's judiciary said on Tuesday the statements made by Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh on television carried no legal weight.

PRESSURE MOUNTS Rights groups and Western diplomats say Iranian authorities have increased pressure on dissidents, intellectuals and critical journalists, adding this may in part be a response to mounting international pressure over its atomic programme.

The documentary made no mention of two other American-Iranians arrested this year on security-related charges, one of whom has been freed on bail.

The Woodrow Wilson Centre's president, Lee Hamilton, said on Tuesday Esfandiari has been held in solitary confinement, adding that ''any statements she may make without having had access to her lawyer would be coerced and have no legitimacy or standing.'' Iran and the United States are at odds over a range of issues, including Tehran's refusal to give up sensitive nuclear enrichment work, which it says will be used solely for power generation and not, as Washington believes, to make bombs.

Washington also accuses Tehran of backing militants in Iraq, a charge it denies, and US forces have been holding five Iranians in Iraq since January.

Nevertheless, the two countries have said they expect to sit down for fresh talks about Iraq soon, following a landmark meeting in Baghdad in May.

Reuters DH VP0430