Increasingly desperate security officials in Iran have “tortured” five athletes into confessing roles in an attempted mosque bombing.
The detainees appeared blindfolded, handcuffed, and dressed in jumpsuits as they made their baffling admissions, broadcast by Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday, 14th December.
Tasnim News Agency is headquartered in Tehran and is said to have links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The accused are snowboard instructor and graphic artist Dena Shibani, rock-climbing instructor Hesam Mousavi, snowboard instructor Amir Arslan Mahdavi, cycling instructor Eshraq Najafabadi, and mountain-climbing instructor and hiker Mohammad Khiveh.
According to dissidents, they and at least 20 others were arrested in October and November by the IRGC in Fars Province and were taken to a detention centre in Shiraz.
They are accused of attempting to bomb a mosque in the city.
The apparently forced confessions identified Dena as “in charge of advertising and testing the operation” and Hesam as “one of the designers of the operation”.
Amir was said to be “a member of the group and the bomber”, Eshraq “the head of the group”, and Mohammad “in charge of making the bomb kit”.
Their family and friends say they were “tortured” into making the confessions and were denied access to lawyers.
Sources close to the detainees believe they were really arrested for making anti-regime posts on social media.
It is not clear if any of the five had even attended street protests.
Human rights activists now fear that officials in the Islamic Republic will sentence them to death.
Protests in Iran broke out on 16th September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was beaten by morality police for wearing her hijab “improperly”.
The protests have seen at least 458 people killed and 11 officially sentenced to death, according to independent estimates.
More than 18,200 people are believed by human rights groups to have been detained by authorities in the Islamic Republic over the ongoing demonstrations.
