the country's provincial courts, there is no evidence to suggest that complaints to these bodies are
independently reviewed and investigated.7 Without mechanisms able to independently and
impartially review complaints of human rights violations, perpetrators accountability is severely
limited -if not made impossible.
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 conducts
of the law and confronts those in breach. The Board’s functions 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 and making them available to the public every three
months.”8 The Supervision and Inspection Board has also set up a database enabling victims and
witnesses to submit their complaints. On 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.9 There is no readily available information that might indicate that complaints have
been investigated and adjudicated either by the Board or the Secretariat in an independent and
impartial manner.
Additionally, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that the Citizenship
Rights’ Watch Board carries periodic inspections of prisons and detention centers. According to
the government, the body has “received and handled 3,275 complaints and reports, through the
complaint system, in relation with civil rights violations. Between 2015 and 2018, a number of
28,504 inspections were carried out of the prosecutors' offices, prisons and detention centers.”10
There is no readily available information about the outcomes of such inspections and whether
they led to the investigation of acts of torture and ill-treatment against detainees.
As a consequence, there is no readily available information that might indicate that the Islamic
Republic of Iran is holding agents of the State, who are the subject of complaints handled by the
aforementioned mechanisms, accountable. On the contrary, numerous NGO and OHCHR reports
7
Joint submission to the Human Rights Committee, Abdorrahman Center, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC),
Impact Iran and Human Rights Activists in Iran, 2020,
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCCPR%2fICS%2fIRN%2f42313
&Lang=en
8
See Executive By-law of Article 1(15) of the Law on Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Safeguarding Citizens’ Rights.
9
Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, February 2020, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/43/12/Add.1
10
National Report, UPR 2019, Islamic Republic of Iran, https://undocs.org/A/HRC/WG.6/34/IRN/1
2