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Gozaar
Mehrangiz Kar
Precisely at a time when the eye can see nothing, a light shines in darkness. Precisely in the moments that many prisoners of recent weeks are subjected to torture to make confessions, a prosecutor in the judiciary has courageously broken the silence and spoken about illegal methods for extracting confession through pressure. Precisely at the time when Sohrab Arabi has lost his life under barbaric circumstances in Evin Prison (and under the supervision of the judiciary), and his dear body is turned over to the Iranian nation without any explanation, a prosecutor has decided to implicitly expose the unlawful nature of what is taking place. With his timely action in such critical times, he has restored the dignity of the prosecutors and judges which has been severely tarnished in recent years. Mohammad Shariyari, the special homicide prosecutor at Tehran Criminal Court, has spoken about the right of the accused to defend himself/herself. He has asserted that “the accused has the right to a lawyer and the right to know the charge.” Being aware that, according to the law, the lawyer must be present during the court’s preliminary investigations even if he cannot defend the defendant, Mohammad Shariyari adds, “If the lawyer is present during investigations, he will be able to communicate to the judge any specific concerns that he has regarding his defense of the accused” (Sarmayeh Newspaper, July 9, 2009). If the legal procedures that Shariyari mentions had been observed by the prosecutors and their subordinates, many of the victims would have been alive today.
Calling attention to the legal constraints that prevent the unjust actions of interrogators, judge Shariyari says: “The accused has certain rights during interrogations. The questions that are asked of the accused must be clear and unequivocal. The accused should not answer to these questions under pressure and unwillingly, and he/she should be able to defend himself/herself freely.”
Unlike many other judges, Shariyari has called for the observation of the Constitution which emphasizes the rights of the accused. He asserts that, according to the Constitution, torture for obtaining confession from the accused during interrogations is prohibited and, if the accused confesses under torture, this confession will lack judicial validity. Shariyari points out that “the law has specified punishments for those who extract confessions by force, and if the accused dies under torture, the torturer, according to the law, should be condemned to qesas [retribution].”
Shariyari speaks of the right of the accused to remain silent: “According to the Penal Code, the accused has the right to remain silent before the interrogator’s questions and his silence will be recorded in his/her file.” He refers to Iran’s Penal Code and highlights the rights of the accused: “To explain the charge to the accused is another right that he/she is entitled to. According to Article 129 of the Penal Code, the accused is asked to state his name and address and he is told to be careful about his statements.”
The scenes which the people of world have seen on television screens and computer monitors may have created this doubt that the concept of “law” is not discovered in Iran yet and is only summed up in physical assaults, clubs, batons, whips, and bullets. But the law and lawmaking have an ancient history in Iran, and even now the Constitution of the Islamic Republic contains the laws that protect the rights of the accused, although all of these rights are trampled on. In a timely manner and without referring to the crisis that has taken over Iran these days, Shariyari bravely speaks about the rule of law and inflicts a rift on the darkness of the unlawful practices that have dominated Iran. He directs everybody’s attention to the fact that not all judges in Iran cooperate with the torturers and many of them are tormented by the brute violence that has replaced the rule of law.
Shariyari has somewhere pointed to the right to freedom: “According to the Penal Code, law enforcers cannot keep in their custody a person accused of an evident crime for more than 24 hours…”
Clearly, from the law-abiding perspective of this brave judge, the peaceful protests and demonstrations of people to voice their civil demands are not “crime” and, therefore, cannot be classified as an “evident crime” for which the accused can be detained for 24 hours or even one hour. Any person, who has eyesight and can read Article 27 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic—if he does not intend to commit a crime or betray the rightful ideals and demands of people—will know that even within the framework of the existing Constitution, “peaceful rallies, protests and demonstrations” are legal and participation in them is not a crime.
Article 27 of the Constitution distinctly affirms that “Gatherings and demonstrations, without carrying weapons, provided they do not undermine the principles of Islam, are free.”
We do not encounter anywhere in the statements of Shariyari, the courageous Iranian judge who works at Tehran Criminal Court, that the agents that are, either legally or illegally, involved in an arrest have a right to beat the accused with kicks and blows or abuse him/her verbally during preliminary interrogations (these agents trip the accused from behind exactly at the moment when he/she does not expect it in order to crush the latter’s self-confidence and human dignity completely). We do not read in Shariyari’s statements that the gigantic and ruthless torturers, who have taken the place of the law in Iran today, have the right to deprive prisoners of sleep in order to force them into writing with shaking hands that “We have received orders, money, and equipment from foreign enemies.”
In trial laws, even in the Islamic criminal law which is full of faults and shortcomings, we do not read that “the confession of the accused under torture is of any value” or that the participation of people in peaceful protests and demonstrations is crime.
All of us who, at one time or another, have been the accused or a political prisoner, or sometimes the relatives of a political prisoner or his/her lawyer in the last thirty years in Iran, know the unwritten laws. Mr. Shariyari, too, undoubtedly knows these unwritten laws but has preferred not to allude to them in the current sensitive circumstances. Admiring and respecting this judge who, like a light in darkness, has shined on broken hearts, each of us should unavoidably continue with an old approach that we have taken for many years and demand a purge in the judiciary and its executive arms, especially during the stage of interrogations. But if brave and responsible judges, such as Shariyari, do not support us, our action will not be very effective. We invite all Iranian judges who, despite the enormous pressures of law-breakers, still speak within legal frameworks, to help our justice-seeking movement which is joined with civil movements. We ask them to expose the cases that smell of blood, torture, and threat, and repudiate the confessions obtained under such circumstances as a basis for trials and verdicts against the accused. We ask the noble judges, who work in the judiciary and are in great distress, not to allow their judicial dignity to be tarnished more than this. Why should these judges create a situation in which people would regard all judges as belonging to “the same lot”? We know that is not the case. It is high time that the honest judges separate their stand from the torturers and the agents of torture. The action of these judges can reduce the price that Iranian people are paying to establish justice. Is not the human dignity that is subjected to torture, abuse and humiliation a sufficient reason to convince the decent Iranian judges to speak out and expose the violation of law in a much broader fashion?
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