Interrogation in Iran’s Judicial System; Trampled Rights of Detainees and Continuation of Interrogators’ Illegal Conduct
For years, former prisoners and those still incarcerated have recounted multiple accounts of their interrogation during detention in prisons and holding facilities; accounts in which what is most evident and common throughout is the illegal and inhumane conduct of interrogators who, through various methods and tactics, impose deep psychological pressures on the detainee to force them to confess.
Behaviors that cause irreparable psychological and sometimes physical harm to detainees; prolonged interrogations, repeated threats, sexual insults and beatings of detainees during interrogation are common examples of interrogators’ conduct. This is despite the fact that, based on existing laws and regulations, such actions are prohibited.
First-hand accounts from prisoners about enduring pressure during interrogation have revealed some of the interrogators’ methods of extracting confessions in recent years and have even provoked international reactions; such as the U.S. government’s sanctions against two interrogators from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in March 2021. Nevertheless, this process continues, and many aspects of the pressure exerted on detained citizens by interrogators and the diversion of judicial cases by these same interrogators remain unclear.
The Influence and Power of Security Interrogators in Political and Ideological Cases
Although preliminary investigations at the prosecutor’s office are supposed to be conducted by an investigating magistrate as a judicial authority, in most human rights cases in Iran’s judicial system, these investigations are conducted by interrogators from intelligence and security agencies under the title of “judicial police.” What was stipulated in Article 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code approved in 2013 was that “the investigating magistrate must personally conduct the necessary investigations and measures to collect evidence of the crime,” and emphasized that “however, in cases other than those covered by clauses (a), (b), (c) and (d) of Article 302 of this law, the investigating magistrate may, after providing necessary instructions to judicial police, refer to them the task of searching, interrogating witnesses and informants, collecting information and evidence of the crime, or any other legal action deemed necessary for discovering the crime, and in such cases, while supervising, if they deem completion necessary, they shall make the appropriate decision.”
Therefore, given this condition and the prohibition of the above-mentioned items from being referred to judicial police, it was supposed that only cases related to “political and press crimes” (covered by clause (f) of Article 302, which was not declared prohibited in the above items) would be referred to this category of judicial police as security interrogators. However, two years later and in a series of strange amendments made in late June 2015 to the Criminal Procedure Code, the following note was added to Article 98: “In clauses (a), (b), (c) and (d) of Article 302 of this law, the investigating magistrate may also conduct the necessary investigations in cooperation with judicial police.” In other words, by adding this note, in none of the serious crimes such as “crimes punishable by death,” “crimes punishable by life imprisonment,” “crimes punishable by amputation of a limb or intentional injuries to bodily integrity with a punishment equal to half the full diyah or more,” or “crimes punishable by disciplinary punishment of the third degree and above,” is the investigating magistrate any longer obligated to “personally” conduct preliminary investigations. In fact, in political and ideological cases that are typically accompanied by severe punishments, the control of proceedings is in the hands of interrogators from intelligence and security agencies under the title of “judicial police”—special agents such as “officers of the Ministry of Intelligence, the intelligence organization of the Revolutionary Guards, and officers of the Basij Resistance Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps”—which were “added” in the form of clause (b) to Article 29 of the Criminal Procedure Code in those strange amendments and changes of June 2015.
From Thousand-Hour Interrogations to Threats and Insults
Various accounts of the arbitrary conduct of interrogators toward detainees demonstrate the influence and power of interrogators in the course of proceedings. Prolonging the interrogation period of many detainees and leaving them in limbo is one of the most common methods used by interrogators in political and ideological cases. Recently, Maryam Claren, daughter of Nahid Taghavi, a 66-year-old dual-national prisoner held in Evin, spoke of over a thousand hours of interrogation of her mother and considered it a clear example of torture. Several years earlier, Nilofar Bayani, an environmental activist detained in Evin, wrote in several letters to senior officials of the system, including Ali Khamenei, about the imposition of 1,200 hours of interrogation on herself.
Other aspects of the illegal and inhumane conduct of interrogators toward detainees have been described in the accounts of prisoners about their interrogation period in prisons and detention centers across the country; ranging from physical torture to sexual threats and insults.
Legal Provisions Regarding Interrogation
A review of some of the principles of Iran’s Constitution clearly shows that the conduct of interrogators in predominantly political cases is entirely illegal. Article 22 of the Constitution stipulates: “The dignity, life, property, rights, residence and occupation of individuals are immune from violation except in cases permitted by law.” On the other hand, Article 37 of the Constitution states: “The presumption is innocence, and no one is considered guilty in the eyes of the law except when their crime is proven in a competent court.”
Article 38 of the Constitution also states: “All forms of torture to extract confession or obtain information are forbidden. Forcing a person to testify, confess or take an oath is not permitted, and such testimony, confession or oath is devoid of value and credibility. Violators of this principle shall be punished according to law.”
In addition to these constitutional principles, clause 9 of the single article of the Law on Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Protection of Citizens’ Rights states: “All torture of the accused for the purpose of extracting confession or forcing him to do other things is forbidden, and confessions obtained in this manner shall have no religious or legal validity.” Also, Article 60 of the Criminal Procedure Code as revised in 2013 emphasizes that “in interrogations, coercion or duress of the accused, the use of insulting words, the posing of suggestive or misleading questions, and questions unrelated to the charge are forbidden, and statements of the accused in response to such questions, as well as statements resulting from coercion or duress, are not valid…”
Basic Rights of the Accused
At the same time, detainees at the time of arrest and during the interrogation period, which is often lengthy and exhausting, have basic rights that are rarely observed and respected:
1. The right to silence of the accused: This right is mentioned in Article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, but despite the legislator’s emphasis that “the accused may choose silence,” this legal right is usually met with harsh treatment or accompanied by ridicule from agents or interrogators and investigating magistrates.
2. The right to have a lawyer: The legislator stated in Article 190 of the Criminal Procedure Code that “the accused may have a legal representative with him during the preliminary investigation stage” and emphasized that “this right must be communicated and explained to the accused by the investigating magistrate before the investigation begins. If the accused is summoned, this right is noted on the summons and communicated to him. The accused’s lawyer may, upon learning of the charge and its reasons, state matters that he deems necessary for discovering the truth, defending the accused, or enforcing the law. The lawyer’s statements shall be recorded in the minutes.” However, in practice, in political and ideological cases, on the one hand, this category of political accused remains in a situation for a long time after arrest where neither they nor their lawyers or families have any information about the process of arrest and investigation, and it is unclear exactly what has happened to them. On the other hand, after obtaining initial information by the family, they face a barrier such as the proviso to Article 48 of the same law and are deprived of access to their chosen lawyers.
3. Prohibition of suggestive questions: Although Article 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code specifies the duty of the investigating magistrate that “suggestive or misleading questions accompanied by deception, coercion and duress of the accused are forbidden,” given that this group of accused does not have access to their chosen lawyer during arrest, detention, interrogation and investigation, there is actually no lawyer beside them to ensure the implementation of the proviso of this legal article, which states: “The accused’s lawyer may draw the attention of the investigating magistrate if suggestive questions or other violations of law are posed.”
Known Practical Methods of Interrogators
Despite such emphasis and prohibitions in existing laws and regulations, the usual practice of interrogators, especially in political and ideological cases and civil activists, has been contrary to this and has actually violated these laws. The account of political prisoners about the methods of Ali Hamitian, known as Raouf, one of the interrogators at the Tharallah base of the Revolutionary Guards, clarifies how interrogators’ tactics exert pressure on detainees.
It was in December of last year when the publication of a photo on Twitter of a meeting between students and Ali Khamenei caused the face of one of the Revolutionary Guards interrogators named Ali Hamitian, known as interrogator Raouf, to be identified among those meeting with Ali Khamenei by Mahdiyeh Golrou, a political activist and former prisoner. Raouf has a record of interrogating a number of political and civil activists or families of prisoners in offices affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards across Tehran. After his identification on social media, accounts of his interrogation methods were published.
One former political prisoner who wished to remain anonymous told Hrana News Agency about this: “Raouf had a leather belt that he always used to beat me. Without reason and like a madman, he would sometimes continue this for up to 10 minutes and then start hitting and cursing me and my family with vile language.”
Another former political prisoner had reported on the role of this interrogator in televised confessions, saying that interrogator Raouf “would write the texts and hand them to the filming crew.”
Ali Hamitian, known as interrogator Raouf, and Masoud Safardi, another Revolutionary Guards interrogator, were sanctioned in March 2020 by the United States, a few months after Joe Biden came to power in America.
Special Interrogation of Women
Despite the emphasis of Article 42 of the Criminal Procedure Code that “interrogation and investigation of women and minors should, if possible, be conducted by trained female agents and with respect to religious principles,” and despite the employment of many women as agents, one of the issues that has been violated in practice in the interrogation of women is their formal or informal interrogation by male interrogators. It was in February 2019 that portions of several letters from Nilofar Bayani, an environmental activist and expert detained in Evin, were released about the conduct of officers during her interrogation. In one of these letters, Nilofar Bayani wrote that her interrogators pressured her to “imitate” the sounds of wild animals and threatened her with “injection of paralytic serum and air injection.” In a letter to Ali Khamenei dated February 12, 2019, Nilofar Bayani writes that during the interrogation “she was taken to a private villa in Lavasan with 7 armed men to be forced, despite her refusal, to witness their immoral and un-Islamic behavior in the private pool.”
Nilofar Bayani, describing some shameful behaviors of her main interrogator under the pseudonym Hamid Rezaei, writes: “My fear that if I didn’t write what he wanted he would resort to assault and sexual violence intensified it. His unexplained and unexpected presence in places like dark corridors and the yard of the detention center and his disgusting behavior made me feel insecure everywhere, and my unbearable anxiety for this reason never ceased.”
Conclusion
Multiple factors contribute to the violation of the rights of detainees during the preliminary investigation stage and interrogation process in Iran’s Islamic Republic judicial system. Some of these factors are “individual,” and as long as the current method prevails in the selection and employment of interrogators and there is no oversight of their performance, the violation of the rights of detainees will not stop. Some other factors are “structural,” meaning that the violation of existing laws and the lack of strict oversight for law enforcement has caused deviation from the existing minimum standards to be repeatedly violated and become a constant practice. However, the third category of these factors, which seems to be more fundamental, comprises “legal” factors; that is, the text of some existing laws is drafted, approved and implemented in such a way that it inherently violates the rights of arrested citizens.
Therefore, the most important appropriate measures to prevent or stop widespread violations of the rights of arrested citizens during interrogation can be as follows: 1) Amend Article 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code and delete its supplementary note, which requires the investigating magistrate as a judicial authority at the prosecutor’s office stage to personally and independently conduct preliminary investigations in light of the established principles of criminal procedure and to be accountable. 2) Delete the proviso to Article 48 of the Criminal Procedure Code and allow the accused to have access to their chosen lawyer from the very moment of arrest, which on one hand ensures the implementation of Article 35 of the Constitution and safeguards the basic rights of the accused such as the right to silence and the right to defense, and on the other hand will help make contradictory claims by interrogators and the accused in cases such as torture verifiable. 3) Amend Article 29 of the Criminal Procedure Code and delete special judicial police agents, which would concentrate the legal activities of judicial police on personnel trained by the police and prevent the entry and infiltration of security forces into judicial cases and their influence on these cases and ultimately prevent widespread violations of human rights.
Source: Human Rights Campaign
