No surprise here, the hardliners are trying to hold on to the fort while the citizens’ tear down the walls around them.
Two Iranian pollsters who outraged hard-liners with a survey that found strong public support for contacts with the United States have been sentenced to prison on charges of selling secrets to groups linked to the CIA, lawyers said Monday.
Hossein Ali Qazian was sentenced to nine years in prison and Abbas Abdi, a senior Iranian reformist, was given an eight-year jail term.
Prosecutors accused the two of holding secret talks and providing information to institutes and individuals affiliated with American, British and Israeli intelligence services including, prosecutors said, the Gallup Organization.
Qazian and Abdi and a third pollster charged with them denied any wrongdoing. They were arrested in October and November after their poll reported 74 percent of Tehran residents surveyed supported dialogue with the United States. The countries have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Prosecutors said the polls were politically motivated. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeatedly has rejected resuming ties with Washington, saying such talk was “treason and stupidity.” Khamenei has the final say in all state matters.
After their poll was published, hard-line newspapers accused the pollsters of espionage. The reformist-dominated parliament insisted the poll, ordered by a parliamentary committee, was accurate. Lawmakers say an opinion poll conducted by the Intelligence Ministry last year found similar attitudes.