Inside Iran's Revolutionary Court

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

The State Department today called for Iran to release American journalist Roxana Saberi, saying the charges against her are baseless and without foundation.

Iran announced today that it had tried Saberi for espionage in one day, in closed court.

BLOCK: To learn what it's like to face trial in Iran, we turn to Ali Shakeri. He lives in Irvine, California, and is on the board of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding. In 2007, he returned to Iran to visit his gravely ill mother. He was detained by security and imprisoned for nearly five months.

Shakeri was released and came back to the U.S., but he returned to Iran for trial this past October. One day before the trial, his lawyer learned of the charges his client would face, and Mr. Shakeri heard them for the first time at trial.

Mr. ALI SHAKERI (Board Member, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, University of California): I was accused of propaganda against national interest of Islamic Republic of Iran and trying to make a velvet revolution and make a soft revolution to overturn the government gradually. But they dropped the charge from that level to just propaganda against national interest of the Iranian.

BLOCK: And what kind of defense were you able to present?

Mr. SHAKERI: I start - after the charge has been read, then I start defending myself and why I am innocent and why the charges against me should be dropped. I defended myself mainly 30 minutes.

BLOCK: What kinds of questions were you hearing?

Mr. SHAKERI: About my activities like, as the last four decades, I've been a peace activist and also a political researcher. They'd been asking me, you know, what was the nature of my lectures or my presentations or my activity there, why did I meet those people in Iran, and whom did I talk to and those kind of things, which it was - it's already been investigated by information ministry.

BLOCK: And did you feel like you were getting anything approaching a fair hearing? Or did it seem like this was all stacked against you?

Mr. SHAKERI: My feeling was it's my country. It's my court. I'm Iranian-American. If I respond to traffic court in U.S., I have to be there no matter if fair or not fair. For sure I was scared. For sure I thought, you know, I was hearing a lot of things regarding Iranian court, and I was worried all the time, but the result was what I expected.

BLOCK: When you heard the evidence that they were presenting against you, did it give you any inklings, any new knowledge, of how the security apparatus works in Iran, what sorts of intelligence gathering they do? I mean, did they know things about you that really took you aback?

Mr. SHAKERI: Fifty-fifty. Some of the information was true, and the conclusion was not true. Iranian with dual citizenship, Iranian-American, especially those people, they are - they have curiosity, and they have a cause, like me. I consider myself as a peace builder. It's kind of - it has a big question on top of their head.

BLOCK: I wonder, Mr. Shakeri, as you think about the case of Roxana Saberi, the journalist whose trial was held this week and who is still in detention in Iran, does it strike you that your case is very different from hers? In other words, your trial was held after you'd already been released. You were not charged, as she was, with espionage.

Mr. SHAKERI: My main concern is lack of transparency because - and lack of transparency in accusation, lack of transparency in charges, lack of transparency of having the victim to have a relationship with her or his lawyer. Don't create speculation and involvement, and judging on someone's life without knowing the fact.

BLOCK: Well, Mr. Shakeri, thanks very much for talking with us.

Mr. SHAKERI: You're very welcome.

BLOCK: That's Ali Shakeri who lives in California. He was tried by the Iranian Revolutionary Court last year. The charges against him were dismissed.

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