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The case of Ramin Jahanbegloo, the Canadian citizen who has been detained without charge in his native Iran for the past three months, appeared to take an ominous turn this week. Reports from a hardline Tehran newspaper said the Iranian government has a videotaped confession by Jahanbegloo, in which he says he was planning to participate in a U.S.-backed revolution. The paper suggests the confession may soon be played on Iranian national television -- a move that clearly seeks to discredit Jahanbegloo in his native country. Friends and observers of his case say the confession, if it exists, would almost certainly be doctored footage from interrogations that could be used as evidence against him in a future trial -- but is unlikely to lead to his release.

According to the newspaper Resalat, Jahanbegloo allegedly said he was working with an ambassador in Europe and had been in touch with individuals in Canada regarding an Iranian "velvet revolution"(the term comes from the non-violent overthrow of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989). That echoes statements made early this month by Iran's minister of intelligence, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, who said Jahanbegloo is part of a U.S. plan to back a "soft revolution" in Iran. But the news of a possible confession comes amidst mounting international criticism of Jahanbegloo's treatment(last week, the Council of the European Union issued a statement that said it was "alarmed" at Jahanbegloo's ongoing detention, and called for him to be allowed "immediate access to legal counsel").

"Tehran felt they had to justify his arrest," says Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Washington, and a close friend of the jailed scholar. Hence reports of an alleged tape. If it does indeed exist, it would surely have been made under extreme duress, and promises that he would be returned to his wife and family after making the statement, says Sadjadpour.

This type of video confession is not uncommon in Iran. "There's a long history of doing this," says Nader Hashemi, a post-doctoral fellow in political science at Northwestern University, who has been actively following Jahanbegloo's case. "Arrest, film, and then broadcast doctored excerpts on national television," he says. Some detainees have been released after making incriminating statements(including a group of Iranian bloggers last year). But, says Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, the widespread attention Jahanbegloo has received, as well as his espousal of non-violent protest, has now made him a threat to the Iranian government. Akhavan thinks Jahanbegloo will likely be held indefinitely -- but not killed. If the regime does in fact have a taped confession of some kind, "They've done something worse," Akhavan says. They will have made Jahanbegloo appear to have compromised himself.

But pressure to release him will likely not abate. Last weekend, in London, the United States and in Iran itself, those who best understand his plight -- his fellow Iranians -- staged hunger strikes in support of Jahanbegloo and Iran's many other political prisoners. The Iranians in exile were joined by Iran's most prominent dissident and champion of democracy, Akbar Ganji, who was released from Tehran's infamous Evin prison this March -- after six years of detention and lengthy hunger strikes that left him emaciated and near death.

Ganji is a journalist who was jailed for criticizing the Islamic dictatorship that rules Iran. He continued to write in prison, smuggling out long letters that were full of political philosophy, poetry, humour and occasionally bitter sarcasm. "Zahra Kazemi is the only murder victim in the world without a murderer," he wrote, a reference to the Iranian government's claim that the Canadian photojournalist, who was raped, tortured and beaten to death, had died in an accident.

In an exclusive interview with Maclean's, Ganji explained that he refused to let his own bitterness corrode his spirit during his long imprisonment. "I tried to take advantage of the situation in the way that my thoughts developed," he said. "I learned not to do what the regime would do to me. We should forgive our enemies."

This does not mean that Ganji is closer to accepting the Iranian dictatorship. He argues for a boycott of presidential elections, which do nothing to change the fact that ultimate power is held by the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ganji also opposes political violence. He believes Iran's theocracy will be brought down by civil disobedience. "When a regime closes the door to all reforms, a revolution is inevitable," he said.

Ganji conducted the interview sitting cross-legged on a busy London sidewalk, surrounded by fellow hunger strikers. Even four months after his release, he is frail and gaunt. But he smiles often and laughs easily. The Iranian government permitted him to leave the country, but he intends to return. He expects to be jailed again when he does.

Ganji said he has met Ramin Jahanbegloo and has spoken out many times in his defence. But when "the entire Iranian nation is in a prison," he cautioned against focusing too much on one man. "There are so many other people who are still in prison," Ganji said. "Why is the issue only Jahanbegloo? There have been 27 years and thousands and thousands of Iranian political prisoners jailed and executed. Why is that not important to you? Is it because he has dual nationality?"

The proof of how widespread political repression is in Iran sat on the sidewalk around Ganji. They included Iranian monarchists, republicans, student activists and even Communists. They displayed photos of political prisoners from an equally diverse background -- including pictures of Behrouz Javid Tehrani and Bina Darabzand, who were arrested in 2004 for the crime of talking to this reporter and now languish in Evin prison, where Kazemi was murdered and where Jahanbegloo is held. The Iranians pointed to their diverse opinions as evidence that the opposition movement is moving toward unity -- a long-elusive goal. Many had at least shared the experience of being persecuted and jailed in Iran.

Hamidreza Zarifinia, who was first jailed following a non-violent student uprising in 1999 and again in 2004, said he often attended Jahanbegloo's university lectures in Tehran. He said young Iranians would crowd into the lecture theatres to hear him speak. "What he was trying to do, by teaching modernism and post-modernism, was to give people ideas about the separation of religious and secular society," Zarifinia said. Perhaps this is what the ayatollahs felt was so threatening. But according to Arash Sahami, 27, who left Iran as a child and has returned undercover as a journalist, Jahanbegloo's offence was much more straightforward: "Any freethinker in a fascist Islamic society is a direct threat to its very existence."

In Tehran, some 100 people protested in support of Jahanbegloo and other prisoners -- a remarkably brave stand. Similar protests apparently took place in Shiraz and Esfahan. But none of the Iranians in London expected these events to be reported. The only newspapers permitted in Iran are those that parrot the government line. And too many foreign journalists have learned not to antagonize the regime if they don't want to be kicked out of the country. Ewen MacAskill and Simon Tisdall, writers for the British newspaper the Guardian, recently reported from Tehran on Ahmadinejad's alleged popularity. A headline in the online edition trumpeted the president's "70 per cent approval rating" -- based on one Iranian professor's guess. "Who did they talk to?" asked Maryam Bahmani, another student who fled Iran. "Ahmadinejad's wife?"

Iranian dissidents worry that people in the West only pay attention when their country seeks nuclear weapons or threatens war. As long as the only people who suffer are the Iranians themselves, Westerners are content to look the other way. But Ganji and other exiles are unwilling to forget those imprisoned in Iran. Asked if he had a message for Jahanbegloo, Ganji said: "We're giving him a message now. This hunger strike is a message. We're telling him we're thinking of you. And we're going to try to free you."

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