confessions and/or information is not, therefore, explicitly prohibited and as a result may not be
prosecuted.
There are institutions competent to receive and investigate complaints of torture and ill-treatment
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 with policies and laws and confronts those who breach them. The Board’s tasks
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”.5 Additionally, the Supervision and Inspection Board set up a
database enabling victims and witnesses to submit their complaints. During the 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.6 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, prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran are often exposed to the risk of being held
in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time. While Article 175 of Iran’s Prison
Regulations stipulates that solitary confinement should not exceed 20 days,7 the UN Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (or the Nelson Mandela Rules) consider solitary
confinement for more than 15 days as prolonged solitary confinement.8 The Human Rights
Committee stipulated that the prolonged solitary confinement of detainees may amount to torture
or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.9 Reports of prolonged solitary
5
See Executive By-law of Article 1(15) of the Law on Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Safeguarding Citizens’ Rights,
available at bit.ly/1nRuftq (accessed on 3 February 2016).
6
Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, February 2020, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/43/12/Add.1
7
Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF
8
Rule 44, Nelson Mandela’s Rules or UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,
https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf
9
General comment No. 20 (1992) on the prohibition of torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
para. 6.
2