Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has generally been regarded as extremely poor by several international organisations and bodies. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions. The government is criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, and for "extrajudicial" actions by state actors, such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians. Capital punishment in Iran remains a matter of international concern.
Restrictions and punishments in the Islamic Republic of Iran which violate international human rights norms include harsh penalties for crimes, punishment of victimless crimes such as fornication and homosexuality, execution of offenders under 18 years of age, restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, and restrictions on freedom of religion and gender equality in the Islamic Republic's Constitution.
Reported abuses falling outside of the laws of the Islamic Republic that have been condemned include the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, and the widespread use of torture to extract repudiations by prisoners of their cause and comrades on video for propaganda purposes. Also condemned has been firebombing of newspaper offices and attacks on political protesters by "quasi-official organs of repression," particularly "Hezbollahi," and the murder of dozens of government opponents in the 1990s, allegedly by "rogue elements" of the government.
According to Human Rights Watch, Iran's human rights record "deteriorated markedly" under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Following the 2009 election protests, there were reports of torture, rape, and even murder committed against protesters, as well as the arrest and publicized mass trials of dozens of prominent opposition figures in which defendants "read confessions that bore every sign of being coerced." The United Nations human rights office stated in October 2012 that Iranian authorities had engaged in a "severe clampdown" on journalists and human rights advocates.
Officials of the Islamic Republic have responded to criticism by stating that Iran has "the best human rights record" in the Muslim world; that it is not obliged to follow "the West's interpretation" of human rights; and that the Islamic Republic is a victim of "biased propaganda of enemies" which is "part of a greater plan against the world of Islam". According to Iranian officials, those who human rights activists say are peaceful political activists being denied due process rights are actually guilty of offenses against the national security of the country, and those protesters claiming Ahmadinejad stole the 2009 election are actually part of a foreign-backed plot to topple Iran's leaders.
As of 2019, issues of concern presented by Amnesty International include the use of lethal force, killing over 300, to unlawfully crush November protests; arbitrary detention of thousands of protesters; sentences of imprisonment and flogging for over 200 human rights defenders; entrenched discrimination, torture and other ill-treatment for ethnic and religious minorities; a crackdown on women's campaigning against forced veiling laws.
Background
History
The Islamic revolution is thought to have a significantly worse human rights record than the Pahlavi dynasty it overthrew. According to political historian Ervand Abrahamian, "whereas less than 100 political prisoners had been executed between 1971 and 1979, more than 7900 were executed between 1981 and 1985.... the prison system was centralized and drastically expanded... Prison life was drastically worse under the Islamic Republic than under the Pahlavis. One who survived both writes that four months under Ladjevardi took the toll of four years under SAVAK. In the prison literature of the Pahlavi era, the recurring words had been 'boredom' and 'monotony'. In that of the Islamic Republic, they were 'fear', 'death', 'terror', 'horror', and most frequent of all 'nightmare'." According to estimates provided by the military historian Spencer C. Tucker, in the period of 1980 to 1985, between 25,000 and 40,000 Iranians were arrested, 15,000 Iranians were tried and 8,000 to 9,500 Iranians were executed.The vast majority of killings of political prisoners occurred in the first decade of the Islamic Republic, after which violent repression lessened. With the rise of the Iranian reform movement and the election of moderate Iranian president Mohammad Khatami in 1996 numerous moves were made to modify the Iranian civil and penal codes in order to improve the human rights situation. The predominantly reformist parliament drafted several bills allowing increased freedom of speech, gender equality, and the banning of torture. These were all dismissed or significantly watered down by the Guardian Council and leading conservative figures in the Iranian government at the time.
According to The Economist magazine,
The Tehran spring of ten years ago has now given way to a bleak political winter. The new government continues to close down newspapers, silence dissenting voices and ban or censor books and websites. The peaceful demonstrations and protests of the Khatami era are no longer tolerated: in January 2007 security forces attacked striking bus drivers in Tehran and arrested hundreds of them. In March police beat hundreds of men and women who had assembled to commemorate International Women's Day.
International criticism
Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, human rights violations of religious minorities have been the subject of resolutions and decisions by the United Nations and its human rights bodies, the Council of Europe, European Parliament and United States Congress.
In addition, non-governmental human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, have issued reports and expressed concern over issues such as the treatment of religious minorities, prison conditions, medical conditions of prisoners, deaths of prisoners, mass arrests of anti-government demonstrators.
In early 1980, Iran became one of the few countries to ever be investigated by a UN country rapporteur under the UN Special Procedures section.
Four years later the United Nations Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Representative on Iran to study its human rights situation and as of 2001 three men have filled that role.
According to The Minority Rights Group, in 1985 Iran became "the fourth country ever in the history of the United Nations" to be placed on the agenda of the General Assembly because of "the severity and the extent of this human rights record".
From 1984 to 2001, United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed resolutions about human rights violations against Iran's religious minorities, especially the persecution of Baháʼís. The UNCHR did not pass such a resolution in 2002, when the government of Iran extended an invitation to the UN "Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression" to visit the country and investigate complaints. However, according to the organization Human Rights Watch, "when these officials did visit the country, found human rights conditions wanting and issued reports critical of the Islamic government, not only did the government not implement their recommendations", it retaliated "against witnesses who testified to the experts."
In 2003 the resolutions began again with Canada sponsoring a resolution criticizing Iran's "confirmed instances of torture, stoning as a method of execution and punishment such as flogging and amputations," following the death of an Iranian-born Canadian citizen, Zahra Kazemi, in an Iranian prison. The resolution has passed in the UN General Assembly every year since.
The European Union has also criticized the Islamic Republic's human rights record, expressing concern in 2005, 2007 and on 6 October 2008 presenting a message to Iran's ambassador in Paris expressing concern over the worsening human rights situation in Iran. On 13 October 2005, the European Parliament voted to adopt a resolution condemning the Islamic government's disregard of the human rights of its citizens. Later that year, Iran's government announced it would suspend dialogue with the European Union concerning human rights in Iran. On 9 February 2010, the European Union and United States issued a joint statement condemning "continuing human rights violations" in Iran.
On 2 September 2020, Amnesty International accused Iranian authorities of committing widespread human rights violations, during the 2019 protests. The nationwide protests were sparked by soaring fuel prices. In response to protests, the government reportedly caused hundreds of deaths with deliberate use of lethal force, in addition to 7,000 arrests. According to a report, the detainees included children which were subjected to beatings, extreme temperatures, stress positions and electrocution.
On 17 May 2022, the spokeswoman for the United Nations Human Rights Office requested Iran to suspend the execution of Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali and to commute his death sentence.
Relative openness
One observation made by non-governmental sources of the state of human rights in the Islamic Republic is that repression is not so severe that the Iranian public is afraid to criticize its government publicly to strangers.A hypothesis of why human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic are not as severe as those in Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq comes from the American journalist Elaine Sciolino who speculated that
Shiite Islam thrives on debate and discussion... So freedom of thought and expression is essential to the system, at least within the top circles of religious leadership. And if the mullahs can behave that way among themselves in places like the holy city of Qom, how can the rest of a modern-day society be told it cannot think and explore the world of experience for itself?
Another hypothesis offered by Iranians is that "notions of democracy and human rights have taken root among the Iranian people" making it "much more difficult for the government to commit crimes" than the Shah's government did. Writing about the reform period during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami Iranian-American academic Arzoo Osanloo notes that, "liberal notions of rights are almost hegemonic in Iran today." And journalist Hooman Majd explains the Islamic Republic's relative tolerance by claiming that if Iranian intelligence services "were to arrest anyone who speaks ill of the government in private, they simply couldn't build cells fast enough to hold their prisoners."