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Article 27. Gatherings and demonstrations, without carrying arms, are allowed provided that they do not harm the tents of Islam and public interest and rights of others.
Article 28. Every individual has the right to choose his/her own occupation provided that the activity is not against Islam and public interest and the rights of others. The state is obliged to give all individuals equal opportunity to enter into various occupations in the light of societal needs for various types of employment.
Article 30. The state is obliged to provide without charge every member of the nation with facilities to continue his/her education to the end of the intermediate level and expand higher education facilities to the extent necessitated by the needs of the country to achieve self-sufficiency.
Article 32. No one can be arrested unless on the basis of the rules and regulations which are specified in law. Upon arrest, the accused should be informed of the charges against him/her in writing and understand them and the case should be sent to competent legal authorities within twenty-four hours of the person being charged. The case must be heard by the court as soon as possible. Failure to comply with these provisions results in punishment to be decided by law.
Article 33: No person may be exiled from his/her place of residence or be prevented from residing in the location of his/her choice unless in cases specified by law.
Article 34. Every individual has the right to have access to competent courts in order to have his/her rights defended and all members of the nation have the right of access to such courts and no one can be prevented from resorting to the court which the law has made available for redress.
Article 37. Innocence is the principle and no one is legally found guilty unless his/her guilt has been proven in a competent court.
Article 40. No person is allowed to harm others or damage public interest with the pretext of enforcing his/her own rights.
Article 41. Citizenship of Iran is the inalienable right of every Iranian citizen and the state is not allowed to deprive an Iranian of his/her right of citizenship unless upon his/her own request or in case he/she adopts the citizenship of another state.
Despite these explicit guarantees, there are many laws found within the current legal structure of the Islamic Republic that are in conflict with the principle of ensuring individual, social, political and economic liberties. These laws are the most important obstacles to political development and participation, while insufficient legal and legislative expertise in the process of legislating laws creates a lack of compounds their effects. In fact, many articles of the Iranian constitution guaranteeing specific liberties suffer from ambiguity. The absence of clear and transparent definitions also does not help. As a result, articles of the constitution that deal with guarantees of freedom are often restricted by various conditions and provisions. For instance, Article 9 of the constitution reads, “in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the principles of freedom, independence and unity and territorial integrity of the country are inseparable and both the government and the people are charged with the duty to maintain them. No individual or authority has the right to damage Iran’s political, cultural, economic and military independence or its territorial integrity in the name of freedom and no person or authority has the right to suppress legitimate freedoms in the name of maintaining the national independence and territorial integrity even through legislating laws and regulations.” This Article, which supports legitimate freedoms to the extent that it does not even allow the legislative process to restrict these freedoms through legislation, contains an ambiguity regarding the definition of what is legitimate and what is not. Consequently, the authorities have a free hand in interpreting the Article as they wish by declaring that a particular type of freedom is not legitimate (or religiously allowed).
Article 24 addresses the question of freedom of expression within the context of press freedom and state: “publications and the press are free to express their ideas unless these contravene the precepts of Islam or harm public rights. These conditions will be defined by laws.” Here, despite the emphasis on freedom, there is again a conditional provision particularly because the precepts of Islam and public rights are not clearly defined by legislated laws. Thus, authorities that are against the principle of freedom may use instruments to interpret the Article in support of their own political and factional interests. In one instance, the conflict among various centers of power in interpreting this article reached such extreme tensions that the issue found its way into the media. According to the Khordad daily (1378 - 1998), Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the then head of the judiciary, used the Friday prayers pulpit to explain what he meant by the freedom of the press: “Our Constitution tells us that the press are free to write provided that they do not harm the Islamic tenets and public interpret, otherwise, they are not free and they do not have the right [to publish their views]. Now, if a newspaper owner is summoned to the court, others raise a hue and cry that everything is lost. Our law tells us that they do not have the right to undermine the tenets of Islam. You ask what is Islam? Is it the ministry of Islamic guidance? Can the ministry explain what the Islamic tenets are? No, it is not qualified for this task.”
As a result of the absence of a specific and consistent definition of the terms “religious precepts” and “public rights,” freedom of the press is placed in danger. The defendant in a press case does not know beforehand what may constitute harm to the tenets of Islam and public interest. In fact, the defendant has no way of knowing that his work is in conflict with these requirements until the moment he is summoned to court. In such a situation, how can a court of law determine his criminal intention, a necessary requirement for conviction? Perhaps there is an even more fundamental question: are the contemporary press trials legal when they are held in the absence of a known and recognized definition of the Islamic tenets and public interest? Don’t these trials contravene the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” and other provisions in defense of the rights of the defendant foreseen in the constitution? In the end, the complete absence of a transparent legal system has been an important obstacle to freedom of expression in Iran.
There are many other instances of ambiguity. Article 175 of the constitution provides for freedom of expression on the state radio and television, again constrained by the usual provisions. “The Islamic Republic of Iran Radio and Television should support freedom of expression and exchange of ideas while upholding religious criteria and the interests of the country.” And again we must remember that ‘religious criteria’ and ‘the interests of the country’ are not defined.
On the whole, even though Articles 9, 24, and 75 guarantee freedom of expression, they also contain vague restrictions on freedom. Citizens have no means of knowing what these restrictions actually mean. As a result, people often find themselves in limbo between freedom and oppression and may even face trial without any prior knowledge or intention to act against the law.
Another instance in which extraordinary ambiguity is encountered is article 6 of section four of the Press Act of 1985—which also repeats the content of article 24 of the constitution in nine sections. Even though article 6 claims that actions that constitute harm to Islamic precepts and rules and public rights are specified in the nine sections, the first section, which emphasizes that the publication of materials which are contrary to Islamic criteria prohibited, and section 7 which warns about insulting what is sacred, fail to provide any definition of what the Islamic criteria are and what is sacred. Such definitions are not given in any other laws.
In the amendment to the press law, which was put before the parliament in 2000, the absence of definitions of terms such as Islamic tenets, precepts and criteria as well as sacred things persists. Besides, this new act embodies a despotic addition to the previous press law. Enacted by the fifth legislative Majles, which was controlled by anti-reform elements, the law now holds publishers directly responsible for any article published that is determined to be undermining religious values—once again without any clear definition of those values.
Conclusion
The legislative organ of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which according to section 7 of Article 3 of the constitution is empowered to safeguard political and social freedoms within the law, has thus far failed to move in the direction of providing a clear definition of such ambiguous and vague phrases as tenets and precepts of Islam, public rights, legitimate freedoms, religious criteria and the national interest. As a result, those who are active in political and cultural arenas are left without any guidelines about what constitutes legitimate limits to public acts—invariably leading to punitive legal actions against people who in fact thought they were acting within the bounds of the law, as well as much self-censorship on the part of artists and writers who do not know when their actions will elicit a state response. However, it must be emphasized that being in limbo is not the fate of merely this generation of artists and writers, but has its roots in the history of legislation in Iran. At various moments in history, religious authorities have emphasized the need for the conformity of cultural works to religious ideas, and this emphasis has been persistent. The present situation, additionally, must be understood in the context of the historical course of legislation since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. As mentioned before, traditionalist tendencies, autocracy and suppression of freedom have always existed in Iran. Even the 1997 reform movement had focused primarily on the unlawful activities of those in power and the inadequate implementation of laws without paying sufficient attention to the inadequacies of existing legislation frameworks at large. Herein is a serious defect, as the process of reform has two sides: Reform of the way laws are implemented and reform of laws that impede development in the first place. The second need is a particularly pressing one as better laws mean that the public will respect laws not just because they are enforced, but because they safeguard citizens’ rights and freedom. Unfortunately, the reform movement was not even able to scrutinize the legislative defects in full. In fact, limiting its attention disproportionately to the mode of implementation of laws in dealing with important political and press cases, the reformist government (1997 - 2004) was restricted in its action, failing to address laws that affect the lives of ordinary citizens in fundamental ways. In the end, the continued inattention to the reform of laws certainly undermined the popularity of the reform government.
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