cannot be considered as “most serious crimes” under international law. 5 Additionally, terms as
such ‘terror’, ‘atmosphere of insecurity’ or ‘national security’ are not defined under the Islamic
Penal Code. The lack of precision and clarity around what can constitute a crime of moharebeh
grants judges wide and discretionary interpretative powers.
Further, under Article 220 of the Islamic Penal Code and Article 167 of the Iranian Constitution,
a judge has a responsibility to strive to refer to Islamic law – namely authoritative Islamic
sources and fatwas (a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority) – to
convict and sentence individuals to crimes and punishments not explicitly codified by the law.
The category of moharebeh as it exists in Iranian law thus does not satisfy the principle of nulla
poena sine lege (principle of legality). The Human Rights Committee explicitly stipulated that
the imposition of the death penalty cannot “be based on vaguely defined criminal provisions,
whose application to the convicted individual would depend on subjective or discretionary
considerations the application of which is not reasonably foreseeable.” 6
The Article 90 Commission of the Parliament is in charge of investigating complaints from
citizens made against the operations of the Parliament itself, the executive and the judiciary. 7
There is no readily available information indicating the number of complaints following the
imposition of the death penalty on charges of moharebeh received and investigated by the Article
90 Commission.
The death penalty on charges of moharebeh still occur in the Islamic Republic of Iran. According
to Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, from the beginning of 2016
through the end of 2020, moharebeh was a charge against 81 persons put to death. Acts for
which moharebeh capital sentences were implemented include armed robberies of supermarkets,
armed theft of ten kilograms of gold, wielding cold weapons against women in a community, and
collaboration with opposition groups.8
Recommendation Status:
This recommendation has NOT been implemented.
55
General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the
right to life, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/CCPR_C_GC_36_8785_E.pdf
6General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the
right to life, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/CCPR_C_GC_36_8785_E.pdf
7 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/internal-regulation-on-the-commission-of-article-90-of-theconstitution/
8 Research conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran
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