The Iranian Legal System and Its Weaknesses
The Iranian penal code is strictly Islamic in nature. Most all of the Quranic laws have prescribed punishments for those who are found to be guilty. Not surprisingly, there are no rights to fair trials. Phrases like due process are almost non-existent, as the Iranian police are notorious for their torture, indefinite detainment, and general mistreatment of any and all perceived as a threat to the Islamic identity of the state.
Human Rights Watch lauded Iran’s lack of respect for basic human rights, which deteriorated in 2004; grievances held include the proliferation of torture [and] solitary confinement used to punish dissidents (Human Rights Watch, 2005).
Public executions have also plagued Iranian society. A cruel method observed hundreds of years ago, the brutal Islamic authorities have stressed their continuation of such executions and have referred to them as a necessity for confronting those who bring public disorder (Shokohi 2002). The justification for public execution and the relative absence of due process begs the question of reform, or more importantly, how reform can be brought about without the removal of the Islamic judiciary. Iranians condemn the Islamic regime’s suppression and execution; however, they are powerless to reform without embarking on another revolution, one that could result in the loss of many more lives than the revolution that marked the ascendance of the ayatollahs.
The decree of an Islamic court is regarded as the decree of God, a testament to the static nature of rulings. As the courts are regarded as virtually infallible, there can be no check to its power or its judgment. Ironically, it is almost sacrilege to regard anything but God in such a light according to Shi’a doctrine. Perhaps the greatest impediment to the Iranian legal system is that its due process is virtually nonexistent; with no formal legal processions or motions, there can never be reform.
Freedom of Religion
Iran was once among the most diverse nations in the Middle East. With a Jewish population numbering almost 100,000, Iran also lays claim to being the birthplace of the Baha’i faith. Before 1979, Iran’s ruling government greatly favored the Baha’i and the minority populations, as they were often used as intermediaries with the West. Like the Ottoman Empire before World War I, the government of the later-exiled shah earned the spite of many citizens for its unabashed favor of minorities over the majority Shi’a populous.
Today, Iran not only suppresses the rights of the Baha’i, Jewish, and Sunni populations to worship in public, it also uses minority presence to spur the population into supporting the existing regime. The oppression of minority populations is deplorable and evidence of a government that neglects aspects of Shariah law that would erstwhile be in their favor. Recently, the Khatami administration has advocated political and religious tolerance, spurring the country [to be] engaged in extraordinary public debate over theology and politics, the kind of discussion rarely tolerated in the rest of the Muslim world (Abdo 2003, p. 4).
Though a welcome change, the ruling Guardian Council still prevents other religions from openly practicing religions, most likely a combination of xenophobia and a fear of Western indoctrination. The major minority, the Baha’i, is headquartered in Israel. The clergy, like most in the Muslim world, accuse anything remotely connected to the Jewish state of being agents in its service. Ironically, the Baha’i relocated to Acre eighty years before Israel’s creation in what was then Ottoman Palestine (Simpson 1988, 215).
The Baha’i were also favored greatly by the deposed shah, a historical fact that works against their assimilation into Iranian society. Human Rights Watch cites the mistreatment of the Baha’i community, which continues to be denied permission to worship or engage in communal affairs in a public manner (Human Rights Watch 2005). Many Iranians have openly voiced their discontents, most notably in the guise of Abdollah Nouri’s preaching of the need for religious tolerance, free expression, and an end to religious absolutism (Abdo 50). The government was quick in its attempts to discredit Nouri, a sign of his growing popularity and the judiciary’s fear of popular support.
The freedom of religion is inherently limited, again because of Iran’s affiliation as a Muslim state. No matter the impetus of ijtihad, religious minorities will always be subject to discrimination because of the fragile balance between Shi’a Islam and Iranian identity. Only when the nationalist fervor subsides can real progress be made; only the most avant-garde of writers and journalists claim Iranian identity to be free of religious affiliation.
Freedom of Speech
The freedoms of speech and petition, like other such freedoms in Iran, are controlled by the heavy hand of Iran’s ruling Guardian Council. Protests are subject to approval by the Council, both in matters of topic and content. Though farcical in nature, the freedoms of speech and petition are utilized more frequently in Iran than other Middle Eastern countries as the new generation of students number well into the millions.
Perhaps cognizant of the threat behind subduing voices of the new generation, the outdated Guardian Council has allowed a surprising number of dissenting voices to be heard, despite past actions that led to the disassembly of several national magazines. Like other nations faced with the threat of propaganda, several of Iran’s newspapers are published in secret, distributed in underground distribution channels and destroyed soon after being read.
Ironically, President Khatami promised to carve out a civil society and implement the rule of law within an Islamic political system (Abdo 2003, p. 4). He encouraged a free press, and under his leadership, Iran’s national newspapers have grown modestly in number (Abdo 2003, p.4). According to Human Rights Watch, the judiciary Guardian Council commits the majority of these transgressions. As an Islamic Republic, Iran has therefore given the Guardian Council carte blanche, free reign to determine what constitutes legality and to what extent due process will take root in the law.
Unfortunately, secular reformers in Iran often espouse the selfsame controlling attributes as their Islamic counterparts, proclaiming the greatness of the freedom of expression so long as they retained their tenuous hold on power and influence (Abdo 272). The so-called reformist stranglehold on expression has seen the incarceration of journalists and writers who remain behind bars solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression (Human Rights Watch 2005).
The religious constituency of Iran originally advocated freedom of speech in conformity with the Shariah (Akhavi 1980, p. 36). Despite the Council’s contentions that if one cannot have freedom of speech within the [Parliament], no one will have it outside, the content was always subject to ijtihad, a retroactive aspect of Islam that was intended by the religious left wing to ease the constrictive Shariah laws (Akhavi 85).
Tags: freedom, freedom of speech, human rights, Iran, Iranians, laws, Muslim
