The role of state-TV reporters in Revolutionary Guard’s forced confessions
After a report about those who lost their lives in November protests was broadcasted by Iran’s state-TV, Civil Rights activist Sepideh Gholian said that Ameneh-Sadat Zabihpour, a state-TV reporter and announcer, was involved in her interrogations in prison.
On her Twitter page on Wednesday, Gholian wrote: “During the production of Burnt Plan documentary, Ms. Zabihpour was present in my interrogation room so that after we were tortured, we would read the text she had prepared for us in front of a camera.”
Burnt Plan was a documentary that the state-TV (IRIB) broadcasted in the early 2019after the arrest of labor activists and Gholian, in which they used videos of their confessions.
Zabihpour is an IRIB reporter on politics and Iranian media abroad. She was thanked for her service during the Ahmadinejad administration by the president at the time.
On her Twitter page, Gholian said that broadcasting her forced confessions are torture and asked for help from legal experts to bring a lawsuit against Zabihpour for her role in Gholian’s interrogations.
The state-TV has claimed that the death of Pouya Bakhtiari is suspicious and it is probably a symbolisms project by the dissident media against the Islamic Republic.
Pouya Bakhtiari was a young protester who was shot and killed by the security forces during the country-wide protests in Iran in November. Security forces have also arrested Bakhtiari’s parents and 10 of his relatives for trying to hold a memorial for their lost son.
Ali Rezvani is another state-TV reporter and host who has been accused of working with the Intelligence forces as an interrogator. The family of Kavous Seyed Emami, the human rights activist killed in prison, identified Rezvani as one of the interrogators who had even visited their house with IRGC Intelligence agents.