Shahrzad News: Following the death in a Tehran detention centre of blogger Sattar Beheshti, who was being interrogated there for his dissident views, the editor of the Khorasan daily newspaper has criticised the police. He said that their interrogation methods are defective, and that they should be accountable to the public.
“The cases of Beheshti and other victims of the Kahrizak detention centre show clearly that there are systematic flaws in police interrogation procedures, and these must be put right,” said Mohamad Saeed Ahadian. “This is an old problem. Complaints have been made, not only by dissidents but by ordinary citizens, who all say they were beaten or tortured during interrogation in an attempt to extract information from them.”
Meanwhile Giti Fazelpour, the lawyer representing Sattar Beheshti’s family, said she was seriously worried that his case would never come before a court. She said his file is still in the hands of the criminal justice department.
One factor complicating the investigation is the public prosecutor’s claim that Sattar’s family say they do not want the police implicated in the crime. But in various interviews Sattar’s mother said she had been threatened with the arrest of her only daughter if she accused the police of murdering her son.
