Updated, 4:50 pm EST: The Washington Post also highlights the verdicts against the Alaeis, with additional information from Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi, in an article titled “Iranian AIDS doctors get several years in jail”

Following the trial of Drs. Kamiar and Arash Alaei, news of illegitimately coerced confessions and a verdict that confounds human rights standards hit news agencies yesterday. A number of stories ran in today’s papers.

Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi quoted PHR in an article about the doctors’ three- and six-year prison terms, handed down earlier this week. Individuals close to the Alaeis say that the doctors’ confessions may have been forced during their prolonged detention:

The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights in an e-mail Wednesday to The Associated Press expressed deep concern over Alaeis purported confessions, which the group said were used by Iranian authorities to convict them.

The confessions may have been forcibly extracted, PFHR [PHR] warned.

Numerous medical and scientific organizations have publicly called for the release of the brothers, held in Evin prison just north of Tehran since late June 2008.

According to a press release Wednesday from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the mother of Alaei brothers told a local news Web site, Rooz Online, that her sons were held for 63 days in solitary confinement and that she feared that they might be tortured to coerce false confessions on camera.

The AP story also ran in the International Herald Tribune and MSNBC.

The LA Times follows up on a previous story by reporter Borzou Daragahi, saying that another Evin prisoner, reproductive medicine specialist Sylvia Hartounian, was also subject to harsh conditions and was coerced to read a statement indicting the Alaeis.

The brothers and Hartounian, an Iranian Armenian national, were arrested in Tehran in July. Hutson, citing sources close to the trial, said the brothers were confined to Section 209, the infamous ward for national security detainees at Tehran’s Evin prison, and suggested that “the brothers were coerced during this period of intensive interrogation.”

Shafaei, the lawyer, said the brothers had regular visits by their mother.

Hartounian also was subject to intense interrogation, rights activists say. The International Campaign for Human Rights cites a former prisoner who says that Hartounian suffers from severe claustrophobia. After being held in solitary confinement for 10 days, she reportedly agreed to appear before a video camera and read a statement “confessing” that Arash Alaei led a secret cell that answered to the CIA and Pentagon.

Finally, an article posted by the BBC yesterday maintains the Alaeis’ innocence, quoting PHR’s Sarah Kalloch:

“We don’t know why they were targeted,” said Sarah Kolloch (sic) of US-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).

“Most of their presentations were about innovative work in Iran on HIV prevention. If anything, Iran should have been excited that something positive like this was coming from Iran.”

The Iranian government has repeatedly warned of attempts to stir up a “velvet revolution” by creating social unrest in the country to destabilise the government.

But no evidence has been produced to show that Arash and Kamyar Alaei were engaged in anything other than international collaboration to fight the spread of HIV and Aids, says our correspondent.