Brother’s keeper
: Khatami’s own brother is giving him well-deserved crap. Says AFP at IranMania:
Iran’s embattled reformist President Mohammad Khatami was under renewed pressure Wednesday, this time with his brother urging him to step in to prevent the alleged abuse of political prisoners.
In an open letter to the president, Mohammad Reza Khatami — who heads Iran’s main reformist grouping — complained that some of those detained during recent unrest had been picked up by shadowy institutions and been subjected to torture….
“Unfortunately, in recent years there have been many cases of people being kept in solitary confinement … and their families subjected to pressure and threats,” he wrote, referring to “students, journalists, political activists and writers”….
He alleged some detainees had been forced to make confessions that implicated reformist figures.
“There have been cases of such confessions that were obtained from students jailed during recent unrest being published in media close to the judiciary,” said the letter, a copy of which was faxed to AFP….
“These acts are incompatible with any moral, humane and legal principles,” he wrote, blaming “parallel services” — or shadowy intelligence operatives acting outside the usual security service structure.
