Tehran | The Iranian Judicial Authority on Thursday issued a circular banning “absolutely torture”, the use of “forced confessions” and other violations of the rights of the defense, with the aim of “changing” the judicial system of the Islamic Republic .
Entitled “Document on judicial security”, this circular in 37 articles signed by Ayatollah Ebrahim Raïssi, head of the Judicial Authority, also prohibits “solitary confinement” and “illegal police custody”.
It also stresses the “transparency” of the judicial process, the right to “freely choose your lawyer”, “the principle of the presumption of innocence”, and “consular access” for foreign nationals.
Iran is regularly accused by the UN, several Western countries, human rights organizations and Iranian lawyers of flouting the principles that Mr. Raïssi now says he wants to see respected in his administration.
The publication of this charter by Mizan Online, the official agency of the Judicial Authority, comes a week after the posting on social networks of videos, apparently shot in Tehran, showing police officers parading in the middle of the street on pick-ups with detainees whom they brutalize and force to apologize to the population for the “mistakes” they say they have committed.
The publication of these images sparked heated controversy in Iran, especially in the press.
According to Mizan Online, Mr. Raïssi reacted on Monday by denouncing the case as a “case of violation of civil rights” and ordered that measures be taken against those responsible for this parade, deeming “strictly forbidden to attack the accused, even if they are thugs ”.
Aged 59 and close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Mr. Raïssi was appointed head of the Judicial Authority in March 2019 by the latter with the mission of radically transforming an institution undermined by corruption.
At the beginning of September, the announcement of the execution of a young wrestler had caused controversy in Iran and abroad after the publication of information affirming that he had been convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture.
A candidate supported by a broad conservative coalition, Mr. Raïssi had failed in the 2017 presidential election, having seen the re-election of Hassan Rouhani for a second term.
The Iranian press sees him as a possible candidate for the next presidential election scheduled for June 2021.
Since taking office, Iranian state media have extensively covered several mega-trials of cases of “economic corruption”, or prevarication within the Judicial Authority.
State television announced on the night of Wednesday to Thursday that Iran had obtained the extradition of Ali Réza Heydarabadipour, former head of the Sarmayeh bank, at the heart of a vast scandal of embezzlement having harmed tens of thousands of teachers.
According to television, Mr. Heydarabadipour – extradited from Spain in coordination with Interpol – arrived Wednesday evening on Iranian soil, where he is to serve a 12-year prison sentence.