An outspoken lawmaker in Iran has demanded the Intelligence Ministry to apologize to people it forced to confess to crimes they did not commit.
Former Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ali Motahari, who has been vocal in defending more tolerance for dissent in recent years, referred to the case of Maziar Ebrahimi who was forced to wrongly confess to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists on behalf of Israel.
Ebrahimi recently told the BBC that Iranian Intelligence Ministry agents tortured him and 11 others to confess on TV that they had assassinated nuclear scientists in 2012 in collaboration with Israeli secret agents.
Motahari in an interview with Etemad daily in Tehran referred to the Intelligence Ministry and said, “People who were wrong should apologize, and also pay damages for harm done to individuals [those accused of killing scientists]. They should even mollify their families.”
On August 19, the spokesman of President Hassan Rouhani’s administration announced, the government has approached Mr. Ebrahimi to placate him.
Reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeqi tabled a motion at the Iranian Parliament (Majles) on Saturday August 17 to summon Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi to answer questions about forced confession in Iran's prisons.