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Coerced Confessions in the Islamic Rep...
Coerced Confessions in the Islamic Republic of Iran
August 15, 2007
Washington DC, August 15, 2007
Iran is witnessing a wave of publicly announced executions,
unprecedented in more than a decade, and a serious
crackdown on the government's critics and proponents of
legal reforms within civil society. With this new surge of state
violence, the Islamic Republic's decades-long practice of
using coerced confessions to establish detainees' guilt is a
great cause for concern and should be subject to serious
international scrutiny. Since January 2007, at least 247
individuals have been executed and scores more have been
sentenced to death. In the absence of an independent
national mechanism to defend the detainees' rights, Iranians
can only rely upon the international community's outcry
regarding the judicial process leading to these executions.
On July 18 th and 1 gth, 2007, the international community's
attention was drawn to the “confessions” of two Ira nian-
American academics, Haleh Esfandiari and Klan Tajbakhsh,
broadcast on Iran's state-run television network. Excerpts
from the “confession” of Ramin Jahanbegloo, another Iranian
scholar who was detained in 2006, were also added to the
footage. All three had for years been carrying out activities
that were legal and known to the government. All three were
detained for months prior to their televised “interviews,”
interrogated repeatedly under harsh conditions, and denied
visitation by family members or access to an attorney.
On July 19th, in a Washington Post article, Haleh Esfandiari's
daughter compared her mother's television appearance to a
“KGB-style television ‘confession”. She also stated that her
67-year-old mother “has been subjected to hundreds of
hours of harsh and intimidating interrogations, often while
blindfolded, totally cut off from the outside world
On July 20th, the website created to advocate on behalf of
Kian Tajbakhsh (freekian.org) pointed to the “deceptive”
nature of the interviews and expressed outrage. It noted that
Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh's “statements to an unseen
interviewer or interrogator are spliced together with other
unrelated footage, while two commentators make false
connections between their work and a supposed plot to
undermine the government.”
Most recently, the Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran stated in an
interview to the Islamic Republic News Agency (August 12)
that Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh “will have some
writings to do upon completion of which further decisions will
be made about them.” The Abdorrahman Boroumand
Other recent newsletters
Iran: In Suo ort of the International
Campaian Against the Death Penalty
February 22, 2011
Iran Uses the Holidays to Announce the
Imminent Execution of a Student
December 24, 2010
Iran Cannot Hide the Truth Behind
Sakineh
December 10, 2010
Iran: A Reflection on the Death Penalty
and a Failed Anti-Narcotic Campaign
October 31, 2010
Iran's Interrupted Lives
October 1, 2010
Iran's leadership guilty of crimes against
humanity
June 8, 2010
Three Iranian human rights activists
receive the Lech Walesa Prize
September 29, 2009
Terror in Buenos Aires : The Islamic
Republic's Forgotten Crime Against
Humanity
July 18, 2009
Authorization Denied: The high cost of
the public expression of dissent in Iran
July 9, 2009
Neither Free Nor Fair, Elections in the
Islamic Republic of Iran
June 12, 2009
>> And more.. .
Visit the Human Rights and
Democracy Library
International Human Rights
Organizations' Reports on Human Rights
Abuses in Iran
Testimonies of Victims and Perpetrators
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5/31/2011 Coerced Confessions in the Islamic Rep...
Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and of Human Rights Abuses in Iran
Democracy in Iran (ABF) strongly condemns the detention
and treatment of these scholars by the government of Iran. Iran's Pro-democracy Voices
During their detention, Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh have been >> And more.. .
denied the most basic rights granted to detainees under
international law. Further, based on the Deputy Prosecutor's
statement, they may be under pressure by the Iranian
authorities to provide them with written confessions. Self-
incriminating confessions obtained under such circumstances
cannot be considered as evidence against them. Rather, they
underline the Islamic Republic's routine violation of basic due
process, including abuse of solitary confinement practices
and prolonged interrogations that facilitate torture and ill-
treatment in detention.
ABF has collected testimonies, documents, interviews, and
human rights reports attesting to the fact that the security
and judicial authorities practice widespread and consistent
use of torture to extract videotaped or signed confessions. In
the case of high profile detainees, these confessions have
been broadcast on television. Confessions extracted to
validate charges of espionage for foreign countries or
vaguely-worded charges accusing detainees of activities
against the Islamic Republic are often pretexts to silence
critics of the government. (See Ali Afshari 2005, Rova Toloui
2006, Ayatollah Seved Hossein Kazemeini Boroulerdi 2007.
See also Tortured Confessions ) The Iranian authorities not
only use coerced confessions for political purposes, but they
also do so in politically motivated as well as criminal cases
simply to make up for missing evidence.
From the inception of the Islamic Republic, judges have
convicted and sentenced to death detainees charged with
political, religious, sexual or other offenses, solely based on
such forced confessions. Scores of prisoners have been
executed for refusing to confess or recant their beliefs in a
televised confession. Over the years, former prisoners,
victims' relatives, and human rights organizations have
repeatedly reported the torture of detainees in Iran and the
use of coerced confessions against defendants by Iranian
judicial authorities. (See Amnesty International, 1985,
Newsletter ; Human Rights Watch, 2004, Like the Dead in
their Coffins.)
Razieh Fuladi (1980), one of the many victims of the
government's morality campaign, was executed after being
flogged and forced to confess to adultery. Mohseni Kabiri
(1981), incarcerated along with thousands of other leftist
political prisoners, confessed to being an apostate before
being executed. Abbas Ra'isi (1988), another Marxist political
prisoner, was executed for not agreeing to recant his beliefs
in a televised confession. Fevzollah Mekhoubad (1994), an
active member of the Iranian Jewish community, was
executed in spite of his reported attempt to retract the
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confession he had made under torture. Helmut Szimkus , a
German citizen who was held for more than 5 years (1989-
1994) in the [ yin prison on charges of spying, reported
having been gravely tortured and having witnessed many
other cases of torture aimed at extracting confessions during
his detention. In response to the UN inquiries regarding Mr.
Szimkus's allegations, the Iranian government referred to the
latter's confession as proof of his guilt ( UN 1995 ReDort on
the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of
Iran).
These stories — a handful among thousands — as well as the
reports on the treatment of Haleh Esfandiari and Kian
Tajbakhsh bring to light the systematic denial of detainees'
right to due process of law. This denial is facilitated by laws
and procedures that govern detention and interrogation in the
Islamic Republic and calls into question the judiciary's
process of establishing detainees' guilt. As long as the Iranian
government does not introduce necessary legal and practical
measures to prohibit torture and grant detainees their basic
human rights, the practice of coercing confessions will recur,
sadly, in Ira n-related news and flaw the Islamic Republic's
judicial process.
Copyright © 2011, Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation t Back to toD
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