Human Rights Committee explicitly stipulated that the ill-treatment of “persons against whom
criminal charges are brought and to force them to make or sign, under duress, a confession
admitting guilt violates both Article 7 of the Covenant prohibiting torture and inhuman, cruel or
degrading treatment and Article 14, paragraph 3 (g) prohibiting compulsion to testify against
oneself or confess guilt.”6
The Iranian legal framework does not adequately protect individuals from torture and other-illtreatment and may well facilitate impunity. While Iranian laws provide for the accountability of
officials and authorities who infringed individuals’ rights and punishes the use of torture in order
to force confession, these provisions do not criminalize torture, nor do they use the term
“torture”. The absence of a crime of torture in itself under Iranian law prevents prosecution,
which is limited only to cases of torture provided under the law.
Despite the limited legal framework, there are mechanisms competent to receive and investigate
complaints of torture and ill-treatment as provided under the law in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Supervision and Inspection Board, established under the Law on Respect for Legitimate
Freedoms and Safeguarding Citizen’s Rights, monitors the compliance of policies and conduct
with the law. The Board’s missions include submitting “the complaints it receives to the relevant
bodies and pursuing the investigation until it yields an outcome”; “deploying inspection groups
to the bodies”; and “preparing reports on the implementation of laws in the country every three
months and making them available to the public every three months.”7 The Supervision and
Inspection Board also set up a database enabling victims and witnesses to submit their
complaints. On the occasion of its 2019 Universal Periodic Review, the Islamic Republic of Iran
stated that “the prosecutors, through judges stationed in prisons as well as the Secretariat of the
Protection of Citizenship Rights and provincial supervisory boards, conduct regular inspections
and investigate any reports or complaints” with regard to allegations of torture.8 There is no
readily available information that might indicate that complaints have been properly investigated
and adjudicated either by the Board or the Secretariat.
Additionally, 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.9 There is no publicly available information that might indicate the number of
complaints against acts of torture received, investigated and adjudicated.
6
UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), General comment no. 32, Article 14, Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to
fair trial, 23 August 2007, CCPR/C/GC/32, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/478b2b2f2.html
7
Executive By-law of Article 1(15) of the Law on Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Safeguarding Citizens’ Rights.
8
Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, February 2020, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/43/12/Add.1
9
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/internal-regulation-on-the-commission-of-article-90-of-theconstitution/
2