Today, Iranian state television showed clips of Kian and Haleh from a program called “In the Name of Democracy” that will be broadcast in full on Wednesday.  The program purports to reveal that they were involved in efforts to undermine the Iranian government.  The charges are ludicrous, and these statements are clearly coerced.  Kian and Haleh are shown in domestic settings and everyday clothing, a deception intended to mask the fact that both are still being held hostage in Evin Prison.

The Open Society Institute and the Woodrow Wilson Center swiftly condemned the broadcast.  The OSI statement reads:

The Open Society Institute is disheartened by the Iranian government’s decision to stage television footage of coerced statements made by Iranian-American detainees Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh and Dr. Haleh Esfandiari.

Any charges against these renowned scholars are wholly without merit.

That Dr. Tajbakhsh and Dr. Esfandiari appear dressed in civilian attire in a residential setting is a deliberate attempt to deceive the Iranian and world public by disguising the fact that they are being held in an Iranian prison infamous for human rights violations.

Statements obtained through interrogations conducted unilaterally under the control of Dr. Tajbakhsh’s captors and without access to legal counsel can be given no credence.

In a press release, the Wilson Center’s director denounced the program:

“Haleh is in her 71st day of solitary confinement in Evin Prison. She has seen no one from outside the prison during this time: not her mother, not her family, not her lawyer, and not the ICRC or any independent international body. Any statements she may make without having had access to her lawyer would be coerced and have no legitimacy or standing,” said Lee H. Hamilton, president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “This reprehensible pattern of activity by interrogators in Iran has occurred before: jailing innocent people, confining them, and then producing a framed or cobbled statement or confession. This is not a fair judicial process at work.”

For more information about the footage aired on Iranian television, see this article from the Washington Post.