The present text is the chapter 7 of Islamic Totalitarianism, Illusion or Reality, An analysis of the Islamic Republic's penitentiary system and the effort of the prisons' authorities to control the mind of the detainees. The author, Chahla Chafiq is a sociologist, and a woman rights adovcate, she has written several books on women rights situation in the Islamic of Iran.

The present text is the chapter 5 of Islamic Totalitarianism, Illusion or Reality, An analysis of the Islamic Republic's penitentiary system and the effort of the prisons' authorities to control the mind of the detainees. The author, Chahla Chafiq is a sociologist, and a woman rights adovcate, she has written several books on women rights situation in the Islamic of Iran. The book was first published in French by Editions du Felin.

The present text is chapter 7 of Human Rights in Iran, The Abuse of Cultural Relativism by Reza Afshari. Dr. Afshari, a Professor of History and Human Rights at Pace University, investigates how Islamic culture and Iranian politics since the fall of the Shah have affected human rights policy in that state. He exposes the human rights violations committed by ruling clerics in Iran since the Revolution, showing that Iran has behaved remarkably like other authoritarian governments in its human rights abuses. For over two decades, Iran has systematically jailed, tortured, and executed dissidents without due process of law and assassinated political opponents outside state borders. Furthermore, like other oppressive states, Iran has regularly denied and countered the charges made by United Nations human rights monitors, defending its acts as authentic cultural practices. In the present chapter, Reza Afshari analyzes the nature of the Islamic Republic's penitentiary and its ambition to control the minds and souls of the detainees.

The present article by one of Iran's eminent human rights lawyers, Dr. Abdolkarim Lahidji, was published in the journal Iran Nameh (volume 19,1-2,2001).

With the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, judicial institutions and the administration of justice were subjected to drastic changes mandated by the provision of Republic’s Constitution. The shi'ite clergy, which for nearly seven decades--since the victory of Iran’s constitutional movement in 1907--had been deprived of its traditional control of Iran’ judicial system, recouped its lost authority. Revolutionary courts that gradually took over the administration of justice consisted of Islamic jurists of undefined hierarchy. The Islamic code of retribution, and Islamic criminal procedure, for the first time, supplemented the Islamic civil law that had already been in force. The structural changes in the Iranian legal system, particularly in civil and criminal codes of procedure, have resulted in substantial flaws in the administration of justice. They have, furthermore, transformed the judiciary power, once a relatively independent and secular institution, into a pliable instrument for the realization of political and ideological objectives of the regime. Public confidence in due process of law, in the impartiality and effectiveness of the Iranian courts, has thus been severely tested. Perhaps as importantly, the resulting incompatibility of the Islamic judicial system with international legal standards has further discouraged badly needed foreign investment in Iran.

The present text is the chapter 5 of Tortured Confessions, prisons and public recantations in modern Iran.The author, Dr. Ervand Abrahamian, who is Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York, investigates the role of torture in recent Iranian politics. Chapter 5 is dedicated to coerced confessions in the Islamic Republic's judicial system.