TEHRAN, July 18 — Two Iranian-American scholars detained since May on national security charges appeared in a program on nationwide television on Wednesday night that suggested that they were part of a project to try to overthrow the Iranian government.
The two detainees, Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with ties to the Open Society Institute, financed by George Soros, were shown in a program titled "In the Name of Democracy."
Parts of what appeared to be interviews with Ms. Esfandiari and Mr. Tajbakhsh were used in the program, which focused on what it described as the United States' role in creating and financing networks that led to nonviolent revolutions in countries like Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian-Canadian scholar who was arrested and held for four months last year, was also shown on the program.
Ms. Esfandiari said in what appeared to be a description of her role that one of her jobs in Washington was to invite speakers from Iran.
"But the purpose of inviting speakers from Iran," she said, "was to have a group of people listen to them. These people were American political decision makers, congressmen, intelligence figures, academics, researchers and journalists." She added, "And so the purpose was to create a network between the speaker and these people."
Mr. Jahanbegloo was shown saying that he attended conferences outside Iran. "I got acquainted with many Americans and Israelis," he said. "Many of them were intelligence figures."
Mr. Tajbakhsh also said he worked as an adviser on issues that were not directly linked to his work. "I was a coordinator and I advised" people at the Open Society Institute "on political, social and cultural issues of Iran," he said. The state-run television has previously shown videos described as confessions made by detainees. Many of the detainees have rejected their statements after their release and have said they were made under duress.
Only parts of the interviews with the three detainees were shown Wednesday night, in a context that suggested that the statements could refer to American plans to overthrow the government.
"How are velvet revolutions led?" said the announcer. "Which country is next?" Street protests in Iran were shown on the screen.
In Washington, the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, criticized Iran. "It's a mystery to me why they decided to prevent these people from leaving in the first place and it's a further mystery as to why they would put them on TV," he said in response to a question at his daily briefing. "The bottom line here is that these people should be allowed to return and be reunited with their families immediately."
Human Rights Watch had urged the Iranian government to cancel the program, saying that the authorities had used coercive means to compel Ms. Esfandiari and Mr. Tajbakhsh to make the statements.
"Public ‘confessions' of this kind are a shameful tactic used by oppressive governments around the world," said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division for Human Rights Watch in Washington. "It's a way for governments to intimidate critical voices into silence and flaunt their disregard for fundamental rights."
Another Iranian-American academic, Ali Shakeri, has also been detained since May. Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for Radio Farda, an American-financed station based in Europe, has been barred from leaving the country.