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“Freedom is sweet, but its price is more important”: Trials begin for democratic protesters in Iran

Show trials are underway in Iran for those arrested for protesting the June 12 rigged presidential election.

Potkin Azarmehr has photos.

Azarmehr also writes about Massoud Bastani, who was arrested three years ago and sentenced to be lashed 74 times. He refused to ask for a pardon, saying:

 “Even though living in prison is difficult, I am not willing to ask for a pardon for a sin that I have not committed. Freedom is sweet, but its price is more important”

Iranian security came looking for Bastani again during the mass arrests this summer. They couldn’t find him, so they arrested his pregnant wife instead. Bastani contacted the prisons and was told his wife would be released if he gave himself up. He did. She wasn’t.

No one knows what Bastani and his wife were subjected to in prison, though my previous post gives us a pretty good idea. They broke him. Yesterday he said he had been paid $400 by an Iranian website in Canada to make a documentary about an imprisoned union leader in Iran. He asked for forgiveness.

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