Banishment Punishment: Intensifying Psychological Pressure on Prisoners and Multiplied Suffering of Families
The issuance of “banishment” verdicts in Iranian courts for detainees in various cases has a long history. In recent years, however, the issuance and implementation of banishment sentences against civil and political activists in Iran has become increasingly common, and a cursory glance at the verdicts issued by the country’s courts over the past year shows that judicial authorities in most Iranian cities have a serious emphasis on imposing banishment sentences against civil activists; from issuing banishment verdicts for Gonabadi Dervishes to civil activists in the northwest of the country. On the other hand, in recent years, “imprisonment in banishment” has also become a judicial procedure. A matter that contradicts existing laws and regulations in Iran, yet Iranian judicial authorities continue to insist on continuing this pressure on prisoners.
The Banished and Cities That Become Forced “Places of Banishment”
The government’s compulsion on a person to live in a “specific” place is called banishment. During banishment, the person must constantly identify themselves to the judicial authorities in the region and must not leave the place of banishment during the entire period specified in the verdict.
In Iran’s current law, which is largely rooted in jurisprudence, the legal term “banishment” is also called “expulsion from place” (nafi bilad). In current regulations, banishment or expulsion from place is defined as follows: “Expelling an individual from their place of residence and obligating them to reside in a specific location; in such a way that they are constantly under surveillance and are not permitted to leave the place or associate and interact with anyone.”
The punishment of banishment or expulsion from place in Iranian criminal law is sometimes defined as a “primary punishment” and sometimes as a “supplementary punishment.” For example, Article 279 of the Islamic Penal Code, in determining the punishment for the crime of moharebeh (enmity against God), designates this punishment as “expulsion from place” as the primary punishment for this crime. However, at the same time, the judge can, based on Article 23 of the same law and proportional to the crime or characteristics of the offender, determine “compulsory residence in a specified location” or “prohibition from residing in a specified location or locations” as a supplementary punishment. According to the first note of this law, “the duration of supplementary punishment shall not exceed two years.”
In supplementary punishments, just as the court can prohibit a criminal from engaging in a particular profession, the banished person can also be deprived of the right to visit, associate, and communicate with others during the period of banishment. If banishment or in this case “compulsory residence in a specified location” is considered a supplementary punishment, the convicted person must, after completing their prison sentence, go to the location designated for compulsory residence.
An important point in the discussion of primary banishment punishment or expulsion from place and supplementary compulsory residence in a specified location is that in fact, with such punishments, not only does the convicted person suffer punishment, but their family is also punished, which violates the criminal principle of “the personal nature of punishment.” For example, Siamak Mirzaei, a Turkish (Azerbaijani) activist, was banished to one year of banishment in the city of Qaen in South Khorasan Province, or a group of Gonabadi Dervishes were banished to cities in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, South Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, Bushehr, Kermanshah, and Kerman, which were at great distances from the residences of the families of the banished individuals. On the other hand, the unwilling transformation of “cities” into “places of banishment” clearly has negative consequences for citizens who are forced to live in the “place of banishment”; even when the period of conviction of the “banished” individual ends, the citizens of that region are still compelled to live in the place of banishment.
Regarding the punishment of banishment, whether as a primary or supplementary punishment, based on the announcement of the “Ministry of Interior,” various parts of the country have been designated as places of compulsory residence for the condemned. A look at the majority of cities that have been considered by the Ministry of Interior as mandatory places of residence shows that most of these cities, apart from being at very great distances from the residence of the person condemned to banishment, suffer from severe deprivation and underdevelopment. For example, some Gonabadi Dervishes were banished to the cities of Zahak, Saravan, and Zabol in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, cities where recent events demonstrated how the extent of poverty, inequality, and lack of facilities have led citizens to the brink of widespread protests.
It appears that the issuance and implementation of banishment sentences continues to be an effective and useful pressure lever against activists by Iranian judicial authorities.
Imprisonment in Banishment; Multiplied Pressure on Prisoners and Their Families
In recent years, imprisonment in banishment has also become a judicial procedure, even contrary to existing laws and regulations. Although some have reported that the punishment of “imprisonment in banishment” is based on a completely private directive placed at the disposal of revolutionary courts for security cases, given the legal principle of legality of crimes and punishments, the presumed existence of such a directive does not give this illegal action a legal character, and that regulation, if it exists, is outside legal standards and is subject to annulment in the Administrative Justice Court of the country. The legislator’s reason in note 3 of Article 513 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, that the prison should be close to the place of residence of the prisoner, is presumably so that family members of the imprisoned person do not suffer “multiplied suffering” or in other words, “punishment” when visiting. This principle has been violated in recent years for some political prisoners.
In one of the most recent cases of banishment, Maryam Akbari Monfared, a political prisoner who is serving the twelfth year of her sentence, was transferred from Evin Prison to Semnan Prison on Tuesday, March 10 (Persian calendar). Ms. Akbari Monfared, who has been seeking justice for her executed brother and sister in the summer of 1988, has spent her entire time in prison without even a single day of leave. This is while she had a 3-year-old child at the time of her arrest, who is now about 15 years old. On the fifth of February this year, Golrokh Iraee, a female political prisoner, was transferred from Qarchak Prison in Varamin to Amol Prison. She had previously been transferred from Evin Prison to Qarchak Prison.
Earlier, Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political activist, was banished several times to different prisons across the country. Mohammad Saber Malak Ra’issi, a political prisoner in banishment in Ardabil Prison, is also a notable case regarding the punishment of imprisonment in banishment; Mohammad Saber Malak Ra’issi was arrested in September 2009 at the age of 15, while a second-year high school student in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, and was later transferred to Ardabil Prison to serve the remainder of his 17-year sentence. He was referred to as the “youngest political prisoner.” Earlier, Mohammad Saber Malak Ra’issi’s mother told a human rights campaign: “My 15-year-old son was in detention for two years. We live in Chabahar. They took him from Chabahar’s intelligence agency to Zahedan’s intelligence agency, and he was there for two years. Then we had no news; they took him to Ardabil Prison. For 8 months, we had no news of him—whether our son was dead or alive. After 8 months, he called and said I am alive, I am in Ardabil Prison. I was crying with joy that my son is alive. Now he has been on a hunger strike for 13 days and I have no news of him. I haven’t seen him for two years. Ardabil Prison is far; I am sick and cannot travel such a distance. In all these years, I have only been able to go to Ardabil to visit him twice.” Mohammad Saber Malak Ra’issi was released in February this year after serving eleven years of his sentence.
Shortly after the death of Behnam Mahjoubi, a Gonabadi Dervish prisoner in Evin, due to deprivation of treatment, eight political prisoners in the political ward of Evin Prison protested in an open letter the violation of prisoners’ rights. Maryam Akbari Monfared, Aliyeh Motalebzadeh, Raheleh Asil Ahmadi, Hadith Sabouri, Zeinab Hamrang, Shiva Ismaili, Perisa Rafiee, and Atena Daemi, in one of their mentioned cases, protested discrimination against prisoners by “banishing” 13 female ward prisoners “with false pretenses and deceptions such as fake summons for false deportations” and with the “aim of dispersing political prisoners, creating insecurity and false hope for breaking resistance circles among them,” and once again raised the issue of “imprisonment in banishment.”
In recent months, a group of women prisoners in the women’s ward of Evin Prison were transferred to prisons in other cities across the country; including Yasaman Aryani and her mother Moniré Arabshahi, who were transferred from Evin Prison to Kochar Prison in Karaj, and Semaneh Norouzmoradi, who was transferred to Lakan Prison in Rasht.
At that time, Babak Paknia, lawyer for Semaneh Norouzmoradi, regarding the deception and scenario-setting by prison authorities for the banishment of his client to a prison in Gilan Province, told Iran’s Human Rights Campaign: “Prison officials deceived my client and called her to see a visitor, and my client did not even bring appropriate clothes with her.”
Despite the illegality of prisoner banishment and the increase in the implementation of this punishment in recent years, the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to proceed with the implementation of this punishment on prisoners.
Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign
