Ugliness in Iran

Taking a page out of Stalin's books, like all the best dictatorships do, Iran is putting on trial 100 dissidents, the proceedings complete with tearful videotaped confessions.

On Saturday, prosecutors highlighted what they called a confession by Muhammad Ali Abtahi, a cleric who served as vice president under the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami. Mr. Abtahi, one of Iran’s most widely read bloggers, was arrested shortly after the election, and word later emerged that he had appeared in a tearful videotaped confession. Such confessions, which have frequently been used before, are almost always obtained under duress, according to human rights groups and the defendants themselves.

“I believe the reformists had prepared for two or three years for this election, in order to limit the powers of the supreme leader,” Mr. Abtahi said, according to a Fars transcript. “I want to tell all friends that there was no fraud in the election, it was just a lie to build the protests around.”

If there's any lie here, it's that Iran is anywhere near being a democracy.