Watchdog

The United States has condemned an Iranian court’s decision to issue death sentences against three men who took part in anti-government protests last year.

Amir-Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi, and Mohammad Rajabi were sentenced to death in February in connection with acts of arson that took place during the protests against Iran’s government in November 2019.

A statement tweeted by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus on June 26 highlighted their plight, noting reports that they were denied attorneys and had been tortured into giving false confessions.

"Iran must respect human rights and stop these executions," Ortagus said.

After death sentences were issued against the three men, Amnesty International reported on February 28 that they "were denied access to lawyers during the investigation phase and say they were tortured."

"Moradi says he was coerced into giving a 'confession' that was broadcast on state television and used as evidence to convict them," Amnesty International reported.

On June 25, two other human rights organizations accused Iran’s state-controlled television of airing the forced confessions of at least 355 individuals from 2009 to 2019 in order to create fear and repress dissent.

SEE ALSO:

'Means Of Mass Suppression': Iranian TV Aired Hundreds Of Coerced Confessions, Say Rights Groups

That report by London-based Justice for Iran and the Paris-based International Federation For Human Rights highlighted Iran’s long-standing practice of forcing detainees to confess to charges dictated to them by their interrogators and using state television to produce and broadcast video of the forced confessions.

Their report says Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB, has become a "means of mass suppression" that, in collaboration with the Intelligence Ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is actively involved in human rights violations.

"IRIB is not simply a media organization and by no means an independent one, but rather an organ of state suppression that uses the tools of mass communication," the rights groups said.

Washington sanctioned a bank supporting IRIB in November 2018. It had already imposed sanctions on the broadcaster's director, Abdulali Ali-Asgari, in May of that year.

The U.S. Treasury says IRIB "routinely broadcasts false news reports and propaganda, including forced confessions of political detainees."

MOSCOW -- Acclaimed Russian theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov and his co-defendants have been found guilty and handed suspended prison sentences on embezzlement charges in a case that critics say is politically motivated and meant to send a chilling message to potential government critics.

The Meshchansky district court on June 26 gave Serebrennikov a suspended, three-year prison term and fined him 800,000 rubles ($11,500).

Serebrennikov was also given three years of probation and ordered to keep his permanent address throughout that time.

"The court believes that the defendants can be reformed without being isolated from society," Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva said when pronouncing the ruling.

Serebrennikov has been hailed as a daring and innovative force on Russia's modern art scene, potentially putting him at odds with cultural conservatives, and has protested government policies in the past.

At his trial, he suggested the security forces and a "culture of loyalty" within the Culture Ministry were behind his prosecution.

Anticipating a harsher sentence from authorities eager to further President Vladimir Putin's perceived crackdown on unorthodox culture, hundreds of Serebrennikov's supporters cheered and applauded after the pronouncement of the sentence, which lasted for several hours.

Serebrennikov's co-defendants, theater producers Yuri Itin and Aleksei Malobrodsky, were also found guilty of embezzlement and received three-year and two-year suspended sentences, respectively. Itin was also fined 200,000 rubles ($2,900) and Malobrodsky 300,000 rubles ($4,300)

The fourth defendant, a former employee of the Culture Ministry, Sofia Apfelbaum, was found guilty of negligence and fined 100,000 rubles but the fine was waived because of the statute of limitations.

The court also ordered Serebrennikov, Itin, and Malobrodsky to repay almost 129 million rubles (more than $1.86 million) that the court concluded they had embezzled.

Lawyers for Serebrennikov and Apfelbaum said they planned to appeal the sentence.

Malobrodsky told RFE/RL that he also planned to appeal.

Prominent Russian and international actors, writers, and directors have expressed their support for Serebrennikov and his colleagues. Many regard it as politically motivated.

Irina Prokhorova, a publisher of New Literary Monitor magazine, told Current Time that this trial, and other similar ones across Russia, were an attempt by the authorities "to revive Stalinism."

"It's a shame that this terrible tradition of a repressive system has not been eradicated and now is growing back in all spheres of our lives," Prokhorova said.

Director Yury Butusov called the trial "a scathing rebuke organized by the authorities to send a signal to the class of creative people."

"In that matter, Kirill [Serebrennikov] is a convenient example for them because he represents both theater and cinema, and modern arts. Unfortunately, many arts people [in Russia] got that message and chose to keep a low profile now.... The message is -- no freedom, no libertinism, everything must be like in the army," Butusov said.

He added that, since the collapse of the Soviet system, the authorities had not interfered in the activities of the arts sector, but Serebrennikov's trial showed that things are going to be like they used to be during the Soviet era.

Opposition politician and Moscow municipal lawmaker Ilya Yashin said that the case against Serebrennikov and his colleagues was "fully fabricated and the defendants are being tried illegally."

Prosecutor Mikhail Reznichenko said at the trial that it had been proven Serebrennikov and other defendants in the case had embezzled almost 129 million rubles (more than $1.86 million). He has asked the court to sentence the director to six years in prison and other defendants to between four and five years.

SEE ALSO:

Curtains Close On Theater Of The 'Absurd' In Russian Director's Fraud Case

The 50-year-old Serebrennikov and the three other people were accused of embezzling state funds that were granted from 2011 to 2014 to Seventh Studio, a nonprofit organization established by Serebrennikov, for a project called Platforma.

Serebrennikov has taken part in anti-government protests and voiced concern about the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

His arrest in August 2017 drew international attention and prompted accusations that Russian authorities were targeting cultural figures who are at odds with President Vladimir Putin and his government.