Tehran, Nov 24, IRNA -- Three members of the central council of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) on Sunday called on President Mohammad Khatami to serve constitutional notice to the Judiciary over what they called violation of the law in dealing with those in charge of the polling institutes.

IIPF Secretary General Mohammad Reza Khatami, Saeed Hajjarian and Mohsen Mirdamadi condemned the way the Judiciary dealt with defendants Abbas Abdi, Behrouz Geranpayeh and Hossein Ghazian as the outright example of torture.

Mohammad Reza Khatami said, "Unfortunately, our friends are going through an ordeal. Their arrest is illegal and the press have been warned not to publish anything about the polling institutes and Aghajari's case."

"We object to their arrest and are concerned about their whereabouts. They have been deprived of their fundamental rights. The context of their charges have been kept secret," Khatami said.

"We condemn such methods at the same time we have serious concerns about their health," he said.

Khatami assured that there is not any valid evidence against the above-mentioned defendants and said that they have been exposed to psychological strains to extract confession from them. That's a gross example of torture.

He said, "The Judiciary's performance in the past in handling lawsuits concerning the serial murders and the nationalist and religious political activists have caused major concern for us about the health conditions of the defendants."

Hajjarian categorically denied the espionage charges against those in charge of the polling institutes, Behrouz Geranpayeh, Abbas Abdi and Hossein Ghazian and said that levelling espionage charges requires expertise. Therefore, the Judiciary is unable to level such a charge against anyone.

"The Information Ministry has a special department which can give expert view about espionage. Of course, the Information Ministry has rejected any espionage charge against the defendants," Hajjarian said.

He said that the Judiciary has levelled the espionage charge against Abdi for his institute's contract with Gallop for launching a poll about Iranian public opinion about the United States.

Just before President Mohammad Khatami's visit to Japan, a Japanese institute had asked Abdi's institute to conduct polls about Iranians' views about Japan. "Is it spying or people-to-people exchange," Hajjarian asked.

Mirdamadi said that Abdi had been held for seven months in solitary cell several years ago and then was cleared of the charges. "The question is who is responsible for such actions?

"The Judiciary has accused Abdi of keeping papers from the US Embassy. There is no papers remaining from the embassy. The papers with Abdi concerns the memoirs of the students who took over the embassy compound," Mirdamadi said.

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