Plan to Intensify Penalties for Cooperation with Hostile Countries; Parliament’s Push to Expand Death Penalty

In late June of this year, the parliament’s judicial committee approved the general framework of a bill titled “Intensifying Penalties for Those Cooperating with Measures Taken by Hostile States Against National Security and Interests.” If finally approved, this bill would classify espionage or cooperation with “hostile” governments, including the United States government, against the country’s security or national interests as “corruption on earth” (Efsad Fi Al-Arz) and could subject individuals to the death penalty. The bill also prescribes severe punishments for individuals who film scenes of crimes and send the images to “hostile or foreign” networks.

On the other hand, this bill has expanded the possibilities for security forces’ interference and influence in judicial proceedings and courts beyond previous levels, and in a sense has legitimized the typically covert role and influence of security forces in the judicial system.

The blatant violation of human rights in this bill from parliament’s judicial committee is evident both in expanding the possibility of applying the death penalty to individuals and in imposing severe punishments for citizen journalists.

Following the advent of Ibrahim Raisi’s administration and the increasing alignment of the three branches of government, particularly the intellectual proximity between the heads of the executive and legislative branches, there is concern that the implementation process of such bills will become easier than before.

Why Is Final Approval of Parliament’s New Bill Concerning?

The bill “Intensifying Penalties for Those Cooperating with Measures Taken by Hostile States Against National Security and Interests” has been organized in seven articles. In part of the preamble or so-called “justifications” of the bill, it is claimed that Iran’s legal system regulations in the field of “crimes against security” have serious ambiguities and defects in various respects, such as “identifying and recognizing hostile states” and also “weakness of deterrent enforcement mechanisms.”

Article One of this law states: “From the date of approval of this law, espionage or cooperation with hostile states, including the United States government, contrary to the country’s security or national interests, shall be considered as ‘corruption on earth’ and shall be subject to the punishment prescribed in Article (286) of the Islamic Penal Code.”

Mohammad Moqimi, a lawyer and jurist, while noting that fundamentally “Article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code has religious and legal defects,” told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran: “The religious objection to this legal article is that according to Article 15 of the Islamic Penal Code, ‘Hudud’ is a punishment whose cause, type, amount, and manner of execution are determined by sacred Islamic law. However, the legislator in Article 286 of the aforementioned law has interfered with divine boundaries and expanded the scope of instances of the crime of ‘corruption on earth,’ which is part of divine boundaries, which contradicts Islamic law, including the jurisprudential principle of ‘Qubh-e Aqab Bela Bayan’ (the ugliness of punishment without clarification). Furthermore, some jurists believe that Hudud are not implemented during the period of occultation and should only be executed by the Infallible Imam.”

According to Mohammad Moqimi, the legal objection to Article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code is that “the aforementioned article contradicts the principle of innocence and consequently the principle of limited interpretation of criminal laws and the principle of interpreting criminal laws in favor of the accused.”

Mohammad Moqimi, referring to the bill’s emphasis on Article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code for dealing with individuals mentioned in the bill, told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran: “This new legislative bill wants to expand the scope of its application based on the aforementioned article.”

Mohammad Moqimi, looking at the concept of “hostile state” in the aforementioned bill, said: “By hostile states is meant a state that has entered into war with Iran, and this must be established by the court in judicial proceedings while respecting legal principles and standards in an impartial manner, which is usually not the case in revolutionary courts.”

Mohammad Moqimi, in explaining why the United States government is specifically named in this bill and this government is listed among hostile states, said: “In some cases, courts, through inquiries from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not identify the United States as a hostile state, and some defendants were acquitted in this way. However, some courts have also identified the United States as a hostile state without inquiring from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or ignoring inquiries made in the past, and have issued convictions.”

It appears that the emphasis on naming the United States government is aimed at eliminating the issue of identifying hostile states. In the note to Article One of the recent bill, it is emphasized that “cooperation with organizations and institutions that serve as covers for the intelligence apparatus of the United States from the instances of the crime subject to this article.”

Providing a Path for Security Forces’ Interference and Influence in the Judicial System

In the note to Article One of the bill “Intensifying Penalties for Those Cooperating with Measures Taken by Hostile States Against National Security and Interests,” it is stated that “a committee composed of the Deputy Minister of Intelligence, Deputy Chief of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Deputy Chief of the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army, a representative of the National Security Committee of Parliament, headed by the Information Officer of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, is designated as the authority to identify crimes of individuals, and it is decided that ‘the decisions of this committee, which are communicated with the signature of the Chief of the General Staff, are binding on all intelligence agencies and judicial courts and shall be the basis for court rulings in this regard.'”

The emphasis on the direct role of security organizations and institutions in determining the conditions of this note in Article One of the bill indicates legitimization of the security presence in the country’s judicial system; a matter that has long had precedent in Iran’s judicial apparatus but the emphasis on such authorities for security institutions in the judicial process is unprecedented or even unheard of.

Mohammad Moqimi, referring to this note, told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran: “It would have been better if this matter were also the responsibility of the court, and usually courts can use reports from security institutions. However, in this way, the ground for exercising the influence of security institutions may be further expanded.”

Although the entry of intelligence and security institutions into the Islamic Republic’s judicial system had previously been established through unconventional amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure by parliament. Item (b) of Article 29 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which was added to this law in the amendments dated June 15, 2015 (Persian calendar), officially recognized “officers of the Ministry of Intelligence, the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards, and members of the resistance force of the Basij” as judicial law enforcement agents and thereby provided the legal grounds for the security sector’s infiltration of the judicial system.

Intensifying Pressure on Civil Society Activists and Citizen Journalists in Parliament’s Bill

Another notable point in the recent bill of the Islamic Consultative Assembly’s representatives is Article Seven of this bill; in this article it states: “Any filming or photography of scenes of crimes resulting in loss of life, life imprisonment, or crimes punishable by amputation or intentional crimes against bodily integrity and accidents resulting in death or physical injury, or terrorist acts, except in cases provided for by law, including Article 131 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, shall be considered a crime and the perpetrator shall be sentenced to a fifth-degree discretionary imprisonment.”

This article also states that “the publication or republication of the aforementioned filmed or photographed material that was obtained in an unauthorized manner or legally obtained by closed-circuit cameras or obtained in any lawful manner shall be subject to the aforementioned punishment. If the aforementioned film or images are sent to hostile or foreign networks, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to the maximum punishment mentioned.”

Attention to the details of this article shows that the purpose of those formulating this bill is to provide the means to counter citizen journalists who in recent years, by sending various films and images of human rights violations in Iran, have drawn the world’s attention to the state of human rights in Iran.

Mohammad Moqimi, in response to the question of what concerns and crises this bill in parliament would cause for human rights activists in Iran, said: “I personally oppose the death penalty, and on the other hand, I believe that as much as possible, we should decriminalize rather than criminalize, and instead adopt preventive measures to prevent crimes. But these matters I mentioned are about crimes and felonies, not political and ideological crimes that in Iran are referred to under the heading of security crimes, and bills of this kind are to intensify punishments for such defendants and increase pressure on civil activists and protesters.”

According to many human rights activists, Ibrahim Raisi’s assumption of the presidency of the executive branch and his intellectual affinity with the majority of current members of parliament and particularly Baquer Qalibaf, the speaker of parliament, and the alignment of other decision-making institutions in enacting and enforcing such laws, will intensify the pressure on civil and political activists more than before.

Source: Human Rights Campaign in Iran