2024 Forced Televised Confessions in Iran

This is an extract from the 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran.

The Islamic Republic has used televised confessions as a propaganda tool aimed at creating fear and justifying the heavy sentences handed down to its political opponents and activists since its inception in 1979. Such confessions are extracted after physical and/or psychological torture, lengthy solitary confinement, threats or promises of reduction in the gravity of sentences and threats against family members. The confessions are often aired after arrest, following public protests to a sentence, or immediately prior to or after the execution as a means of reducing backlash. Airing forced confessions before trial is a clear violation of the defendants’ right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and fair trial rights.

 

Forced televised confessions of some of those executed in 2024. Top left to right: Jamshid Sharmahd and Reza Rasayi. Middle left to right: Mohammad Faramarzi and Vafa Azarbar. Bottom left to right: Mohsen Mazloum and Pejman Fatehi.

Of the political prisoners executed in 2024, the torture-tainted confessions of dual-national Jamshid Sharmahd and Kurdish political prisoners Mohsen Mazloum, Pejman Fatehi, Vafa Azarbar, and Hajir Faramarzi were aired on state media prior to the commencement of legal proceedings.

At trial, not only are forced confessions used as evidence of guilt, but under threats and coercion, the defendants are often forced to repeat the false accounts in court. Once the defendant has been found guilty, their forced confessions are again used as a propaganda tool to justify their death sentences. Forced confessions are also aired post-execution to justify the inhumane punishment of death. This was the case for protester Reza Rasayi.

On 19 January 2023, the EU Parliament adopted a resolution in which it strongly condemned “the Islamic Republic’s policy of forcing confessions using torture, intimidation, threats against family members or other forms of duress, and the use of these forced confessions to convict and sentence protesters.”[1]

[1] European Parliament resolution of 19 January 2023 on the EU response to the protests and executions in Iran, op. cit.