Iran charges dozens with helping Western plot

TEHRAN (Reuters/AFP) - An Iranian court on Saturday charged a French female lecturer, two Iranians working
for the British and French embassies in Tehran and dozens of others with spying and aiding a Western plot to
overthrow the system of clerical rule.
Britain said the trial of its Embassy employee was an outrage.
French citizen Clotilde Reiss was charged with acting against national security by taking part in unrest ...
collecting news and information and sending pictures of the unrest abroad, state news agency IRNA said.
Espionage and acting against national security are punishable by death under Irans Islamic law.
Reiss confessed her mistakes and asked for clemency, IRNA said. Nazak Afshar, an Iranian working for the
French Embassy, was also charged with providing information over the vote unrest to foreigners.
We were not authorised by the embassy to go to rallies but we were told to shelter protesters if necessary,
Afshar said.
The British Embassy employee, Hossein Rassam, was charged with espionage and confessed to handing
information about the unrest to Washington, IRNA said.
The local staff were asked by their superiors at the British embassy to attend the riots, IRNA quoted Rassam
as saying to the court. Rassam was released on $100,000 bail on July 19.
Several British diplomats attended rallies ... The British Ambassador and the charge daffaires also went to a
rally.
Riot police used force to break up a protest by relatives of the accused outside the courtroom.
Relatives of the defendants and a large group of people gathered in front of the court building on Saturday.
When they chanted 'Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), the riot police attacked them to disperse the crowd, the
reformist Mosharekat website said.
Reiss has been held in Tehrans Evin Prison since she was arrested at a Tehran airport on July 1 on charges of
espionage as she tried to leave Iran after spending five months in the central city of Isfahan.
France has rejected the charge against Reiss as baseless and French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called
for her immediate release. The French Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it had no comment on Reiss for now.
I wrote a one-page report about the situation in Isfahan ... and handed it over to the French embassys cultural
section, IRNA quoted her as saying in court.
The latest indictment accused the United States and Britain of providing financial help to Irans opposition fuel
domestic turmoil.
Defendant Reza Rafii Foroushani had contacts with American intelligence agents in Dubai ... Some European
ambassadors and diplomats also attended illegal (pro-Mousavi) rallies, it said.
Among those charged, IRNA said, were also supporters of Irans toppled former royalty who were charged with
being mohareb or someone who wages war against God, a crime punishable by death in Iran.
Monarchist Mohammadreza Alizamani admitted to the charge and said he acted against the system, IRNA
reported.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the trial was the latest Iranian provocation since the disputed
presidential election.
He said he was deeply concerned by the unjustified charges laid against Hossein Rassam, who went on trial
with an employee of the French embassy and protesters who had challenged the re-election of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
We deplore these trials and the so-called confessions of prisoners who have been denied their basic human
rights, a British Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
The Swedish EU presidency, in a statement issued in Brussels, called on Iran to swiftly release the French
lecturer and two British and French embassy workers, calling their trial an act against the whole European Union.