Forced confession is one of the most well-known tools of human rights abuse in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. In such regimes, confession is used not only as evidence to prove a crime, but also as a means to legitimize government actions, create public fear, discredit opponents, and shape the official narrative of events. Historical experience shows that the use of forced confessions is not limited to a specific country or period, but has been observed in different political systems and in different periods of history.

The most famous historical examples of forced confessions include the show trials of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin (1936–1938), in which many Communist Party leaders confessed to crimes that were later revealed to be largely fabricated after enduring torture, psychological pressure, and threats. Similar examples were seen in the show trials of Eastern European countries in the 1950s and during China’s Cultural Revolution, where confessions were used as a means to eliminate political opponents and consolidate government power. In recent decades, human rights organizations have reported on the broadcast of forced confessions on television in countries such as North Korea, China, and Russia.

In Iran, too, the practice of obtaining confessions under duress has a long history. During the Pahlavi regime, especially in the 1970s, many political prisoners and members of opposition groups spoke of torture in SAVAK detention centers to extract information or confessions, and these cases have been recorded in reports by human rights organizations and in the memoirs of political prisoners. However, the organized broadcasting of televised confessions as part of the government’s media policy expanded, mainly after the 1979 revolution, using the state-run Islamic Republic’s Radio and Television (Sada-e-Visa), and became a means of establishing the official narrative in security and political cases.

Over the past four to five decades, political activists, journalists, researchers, civil society activists, dual citizens, and protesters have appeared on television programs many times, and human rights organizations have often found these confessions to be the result of torture, threats, prolonged solitary confinement, denial of access to a lawyer, and other forms of coercion. Well-known examples include the cases of Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, Mazyar Ebrahimi and other defendants in the nuclear scientists assassination case, Majid Jamali Fashi, Esmaeil Bakhshi, Sepideh Gholian, Rouhollah Zam, Navid Afkari, and a number of those arrested during the protests of 2009, 2017, 2018, 2022, and 2025. In many of these cases, the individuals themselves, after their release or their families and lawyers, have stated that the confessions were obtained under pressure or torture, and human rights organizations have also expressed concern about the credibility of these confessions and their impact on the trial process.

In the past year, evidence suggests that this practice has continued. In February 2025, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) broadcast a program featuring eight teenagers arrested in connection with the January 2015 protests, in which they spoke on camera about their participation in the protests. The program was broadcast before any independent judicial investigation and after their identities and family information had been leaked to the national media, a move that drew widespread criticism from child rights groups and human rights organizations.

Also, in the case of some adults detained in the 1404 protests who later faced severe sentences, including death sentences, state media released videos of their confessions before the end of the judicial proceedings. Human rights organizations have warned in various reports about numerous cases of broadcasting “forced confessions” of detainees before or during the trial in recent months. While expressing concerns about the use of torture, enforced disappearances, psychological pressure, denial of access to a lawyer, and violations of fair trial principles, these organizations have emphasized that confessions obtained under duress have no legal validity and their use is contrary to the international obligations of states to prohibit torture and guarantee fair trials.

This article focuses on the phenomenon of forced confessions and examines the legal and human rights foundations of the invalidity of such confessions in the international legal system. The main purpose of this text is to explain why confessions obtained as a result of torture, threats, coercion, psychological pressure, or other forms of deprivation of will are devoid of legal value and validity from the perspective of international law and their use is considered a clear example of a violation of human rights.

To this end, the article first discusses the concept of “crime” and “crime” in criminal law and distinguishes between the actual commission of a criminal act and the legal method of proving it. This section will show that even in cases where a person has actually committed a crime, governments and judicial authorities are obliged to investigate, collect evidence and prosecute within the framework of the principles of fair trial, the presumption of innocence, the right to silence, the right to a lawyer and the absolute prohibition of torture. Therefore, the legitimacy of criminal prosecution never authorizes the use of torture or coercion to obtain a confession, and international law considers this prohibition absolute, regardless of the type of crime or the character of the accused.

The research will then examine fundamental international law documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the practice of international institutions, to explain the legal basis for the invalidity of forced confessions. It will also examine the decisions of international courts and standards accepted in various legal systems regarding the prohibition of the use of evidence obtained through torture.

In the next section, using historical and contemporary examples, especially cases reported in Iran, the use of forced confessions in political and security cases will be analyzed, and it will be shown that these confessions not only conflict with the principles of fair trial, but have also become a tool for exerting pressure, creating public fear, legitimizing repression, and depriving individuals of their fundamental rights.

This article also emphasizes the fact that from a human rights perspective, the issue is not limited to forced confessions alone. Arbitrary detention, criminal prosecution of individuals for political beliefs, restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, and other fundamental rights are also considered to be among the most important examples of human rights violations. However, the scope of this research specifically focuses on the phenomenon of forced confessions, because this phenomenon is considered the intersection point of a series of simultaneous human rights violations, including torture, deprivation of human dignity, violation of the right to silence, violation of the right to a fair trial, and invalidation of human free will in the criminal process. Therefore, the present article attempts to show, relying on sources of international law and the practice of international institutions, that forced confessions are not simply a violation of procedural rules, but one of the most obvious manifestations of human rights violations in the criminal justice system.

The concept of torture in international human rights law

In contemporary international law, torture is not simply a form of cruel treatment or an inappropriate method of interrogation, but is considered a fundamental violation of human dignity, freedom of will, and physical and mental integrity. Article 1 of the United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, for such purposes as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or discrimination, when such treatment is inflicted by a public official or at the instigation of, or with the consent or informed silence of, a person. Therefore, obtaining information and confession are among the most important purposes explicitly included in the legal definition of torture. It should be noted that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not acceded to the Convention against Torture; however, the prohibition of torture is binding on Iran as a peremptory norm of international law and part of customary international law. In addition, Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and, based on Article 7 of this Covenant, is also committed to the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The definition indicates that torture may be physical or psychological. Beatings, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, holding in painful positions, threats of death, threats to family members, severe humiliation, prolonged solitary confinement, and intentional infliction of fear and psychological distress can all fall within the realm of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, depending on the severity, purpose, and circumstances of the acts. From this perspective, the absence of apparent injury does not necessarily mean the absence of torture, as international law recognizes severe mental suffering as well as physical pain.

Why is torture absolutely prohibited?

The prohibition of torture is based on several ethical and legal grounds. First, torture denies the inherent dignity of the human person. The tortured person is no longer considered a human being with independent will and rights, but is transformed into a means for the state to obtain information, confessions, or political goals. In analyzing the relationship between torture, humiliation, and human dignity, David Luban explains that torture seeks to force the victim into complete submission and to demonstrate the torturer’s absolute dominance over his body and will. In this sense, the inhuman nature of torture does not stem solely from pain, but from the transformation of the human being into an object of domination and humiliation.

Second, torture undermines the fundamental principles of the rule of law. In a system based on the rule of law, the power of state agents must be limited, accountable, and accountable. Torture, on the other hand, allows a state agent to make decisions about a person’s body, mind, and fate outside the judicial process. Jeremy Waldron refers to the prohibition of torture as one of the fundamental “arches” of the legal structure; a rule whose preservation is essential to distinguish between the rule of law and the bare power of the state. In his view, creating exceptions such as a state of emergency or the so-called “time bomb” assumption can erode the entire structure of the prohibition of torture, because a narrow exception becomes in practice a broad and institutionalized practice.

Third, torture is also cognitively and judicially unreliable. A person facing severe pain, threats, or psychological pressure may agree to anything the interrogator expects, whether true or false, in order to stop their suffering. Rather than uncovering the truth, torture creates a powerful incentive to produce the interrogator’s desired response. As a result, even when a person does have information, it is impossible to determine without independent evidence what part of what they say is true and what part is the product of fear, indoctrination, or an attempt to end their suffering.

Fourth, the acceptance of torture has an institutional and social impact. Its use is usually not limited to an exceptional case, but leads to the creation of structures that include opaque detention facilities, interrogators who are immune from accountability, cooperating doctors or experts, indifferent prosecutors, and courts that accept confessions. For this reason, the prohibition of torture does not only concern the behavior of an interrogator, but also requires prevention, independent investigation, punishment of perpetrators, compensation for victims, and the exclusion of evidence obtained through torture.

Absolute and non-derogable prohibition of torture

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This rule was later enshrined in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The important feature of this prohibition is its absoluteness. According to Article 2, paragraph 2, of the Convention against Torture, no exceptional circumstances, including war, threat of war, internal political instability, public emergency, the fight against terrorism or the need to protect national security, can justify torture. Nor is an order from a superior or public authority an acceptable defence for the perpetrator of torture. The Committee against Torture has also emphasized in its General Comment No. 2 that this prohibition is absolute and non-derogable.

The absolute nature of the prohibition means that there is no distinction between victims. This protection includes the innocent, the common accused, the murderer, the member of an armed group, the terrorist suspect, and even someone who may possess vital information. The commission of a serious crime does not eliminate the fundamental rights of the accused and does not authorize the state to use torture to discover the truth or punish him.

The European Court of Human Rights confirmed this principle in a particularly difficult situation in the case of Göfgen v. Germany. German police, believing that the life of an abducted child was in danger, threatened the accused with severe pain in order to reveal the child’s location. The court held that even when the officers’ aim was to save a human life, the threat of torture or ill-treatment was contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention. The ruling showed that the public interest, the immediate danger or the gravity of the crime could not override the prohibition of torture.

In international law, the prohibition of torture is not only a contractual obligation but also a jus cogens rule. A jus cogens rule is a fundamental rule that the international community as a whole accepts and does not permit agreement to the contrary. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the case of Prosecutor v. Forundzia and the International Court of Justice in the case of Belgium v. Senegal have also emphasized the peremptory status of the prohibition of torture.

The relationship between the prohibition of torture and the right to silence and the prohibition of forced self-incrimination

The invalidity of a forced confession is not only a consequence of the prohibition of torture, but is also directly related to the right to silence, the principle of innocence and the prohibition of self-incrimination. Article 14, paragraph 3, part (g) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that no accused person shall be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt. This right requires the prosecutor and investigators to prove the crime using independent and lawful evidence, rather than to compel the accused to produce evidence against himself.

The UN Human Rights Committee has stated in General Comment No. 32 that in order to respect this right, investigative authorities must refrain from any direct or indirect physical or psychological pressure on the accused to obtain a confession. In cases where the accused claims that his statements were obtained under duress, the State must show that the statements were made freely and without coercion. This rule is also related to the principle of presumption of innocence, since the burden of proof lies with the State and the accused is not obliged to prove his innocence or to participate in his own conviction.

The right to remain silent does not mean that the criminal justice system is prohibited from investigating a crime or gathering evidence. The police may examine the crime scene, hear witness testimony, collect documents and physical evidence in accordance with the law, and use the scientific methods of criminal investigation and forensic science. What is prohibited is the transformation of the body and mind of the accused into a tool for producing evidence and forcing him to confirm the government’s preferred narrative.

Why is a confession resulting from torture invalid?

Article 15 of the Convention against Torture sets out the clearest international rule on the inadmissibility of such confessions. According to this article, each State Party must ensure that no statement which is proven to have been obtained as a result of torture shall be admissible as evidence in any proceedings. The only exception is where the same statement is used in proceedings against a person accused of torture to prove that such a statement was obtained.

Of course, this rule has several fundamental foundations. First, confessions obtained under torture are not sufficiently reliable. Severe suffering, fear, or threats can make a person say false things or admit to charges that he did not commit. In such circumstances, a confession is more an indication of the intensity of the pressure than the truth of the content of the statements. Second, the court should not exploit human rights violations. Accepting evidence obtained under torture means that the judiciary recognizes the result of the interrogator’s illegal behavior as valid and gives it legal effect. In this case, the court turns from a monitor of the law to a complement to the torture process. Third, discarding this evidence has a deterrent effect. If officers know that a confession obtained under torture cannot be used in court, the institutional incentive to resort to such methods is reduced. The Committee against Torture has also introduced Article 15 as one of the important guarantees to prevent ill-treatment by officers.

Fourth, the admission of a forced confession violates the right to a fair trial. A trial based on statements obtained under torture, threats or duress, even in the presence of some other evidence, is seriously questionable in terms of judicial legitimacy. The aim of a fair trial is not simply to convict a truly guilty person; it is to achieve this through a legal, supervised and humane procedure.

The Committee against Torture has stated in its practice that the purpose of article 15 is to deprive torture of any judicial value. In other words, the government should not be able to create a reason for committing a fundamental human rights violation and then use that reason to deprive the victim of his or her liberty or life. Statements resulting from torture should be considered judicially invalid.

Invalidation of third-party statements and derived evidence

Article 15 of the Convention against Torture is not limited to confessions that are used directly against the victim. The words “any statement” and “any proceedings” indicate that statements obtained under torture should not be relied upon against third parties. For example, if a person under torture accuses another person, his statement will not be admissible merely because it is used against the third party. The Committee against Torture has recognized this principle as applicable to criminal proceedings, extradition and other judicial proceedings.

A more complex issue is “derived evidence”; that is, objects, information or evidence obtained by authorities under the guidance of torture. There is not complete agreement in all legal systems on the precise scope of exclusion of this type of evidence. The European Court of Human Rights in the Geffen case distinguished between direct confessions and certain derived material evidence and considered their impact on the overall fairness of the trial. However, the principle of exclusion is much more stringent in the case of statements obtained directly as a result of torture.

From a human rights perspective, a narrow interpretation of Article 15 could reduce its deterrent effect. If the government is allowed to obtain evidence through torture and then use the result as “independent evidence,” there may still be a practical incentive to resort to torture. For this reason, some legal literature advocates a broader interpretation of the rule of exclusion.

The historical process of the formation of the prohibition of torture

The modern prohibition of torture is the result of a long historical development. In parts of medieval and early modern Europe, judicial torture was not a secret and illegal practice, but part of the formal system of proving a crime. In the legal system known as the Roman Catholic Church, a conviction for serious crimes usually required “full proof,” and a confession from the accused was one of its most important forms. When there was evidence against the accused but not sufficient for a conviction, torture could be used with judicial authorization to obtain a confession.

In his historical studies, John Langbein shows that judicial torture was related to the structure of that evidentiary system. When strict rules of proof made it difficult to convict without two witnesses or a confession, torture became a means of supplementing the case. Gradually, changes in the rules of proof, the expansion of freedom to evaluate evidence, and the development of penalties other than capital punishment reduced the structural need for forced confessions.

In the 18th century, Enlightenment ideas played a significant role in either delegitimizing or decriminalizing torture. Thinkers such as Cesare Beccaria argued that torture was both cruel and irrational, because a strong but guilty person might endure pain, while a weak but innocent person might confess to end the pain. As a result, torture is not a test of truth, but a test of the physical and psychological resilience of individuals.

However, the narrative of a linear progression from “savagery” to “civilization” must be viewed with caution. The formal elimination of judicial torture from European law did not mean a complete end to violence in detention, colonization, war, or police operations. Many states that had banned torture in domestic law continued to use harsh interrogation methods in colonies, wars, or security operations. Thus, the gap between formal prohibition and state practice remains an important issue in the scholarly literature on torture.

The impact of World War II and the formation of the international human rights system

After World War II, torture, human experimentation, arbitrary detention, and organized murder by fascist governments demonstrated that the protection of human beings could not be left solely to the domestic laws of states. The adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 made the prohibition of torture one of the fundamental principles of the postwar international order. Article 5 of the Declaration prohibited torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, without providing for any exceptions.

This prohibition became a binding legal obligation in the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. In addition to the prohibition of torture in Article 7, the Covenant recognized the right to a fair trial and the prohibition of coercion to confess against oneself in Article 14.

In 1984, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention Against Torture. This convention not only requires states to refrain from torture, but also imposes a number of positive obligations on them: criminalizing torture, promptly and impartially investigating allegations, prosecuting or extraditing suspects, training officials, providing compensation to victims, preventing the return of individuals to countries where they would be at risk of torture, and excluding statements made as a result of torture.

This historical development shows that the prohibition of torture has evolved from a moral protest against violence into a set of precise legal obligations. In the current system, the state must not only not directly commit torture, but must also create structures that make it difficult to commit it, independently investigate allegations, and prevent judicial or political exploitation of its results.

Replacing confession-based research with evidence-based research

In considering how contemporary justice systems deal with individuals who have committed murder, violence, robbery, organized crime, or other illegal acts, it is first necessary to distinguish between “suspect,” “accused,” and “criminal.” Mere arrest or indictment does not make a person legally guilty. A person must be presumed innocent until a final verdict is issued by an independent and impartial court. Therefore, even when the prima facie evidence against a person is very strong or investigators are confident that the person committed the crime, the burden of proving the crime legally remains with the prosecutor.

A key feature of modern criminal investigations is the shift from a “confession-based” to an “evidence-based” system. In a confession-based system, the case is built around extracting a confession from the accused, and the interrogator may view the confession as the most important or even the only way to prove the crime. This approach increases the likelihood of coercion, threats, and torture. In contrast, in an evidence-based system, the goal of the investigation is to answer the question of what the body of independent, assessable evidence shows, not how to get the accused to agree with the police hypothesis.

In its 2024 guide, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime describes investigative interviewing as a method based on building rapport, asking non-coercive questions, facilitating accurate memory retrieval, and evaluating information. In this approach, the interrogator’s goal is not to extract a confession, but to gather an accurate, complete, and verifiable account of events.

Why does evidence-based investigation give way to confession-based investigation in political cases in governments like the Islamic Republic?

In legal systems based on the rule of law, there is no difference between ordinary crimes and political crimes in terms of the principles of proof. In both categories, the burden of proof lies with the prosecutor, and a conviction must be based on legal, verifiable, and contestable evidence. However, studies of human rights and political criminology show that in some authoritarian systems, political cases in practice move away from this evidence-based model and move towards a confession-based model.

One explanation for this phenomenon offered in the scientific literature is the difference in the nature of the interests protected by the state. In many common crimes, such as murder, robbery, or smuggling, the state seeks to prove the occurrence of a specific criminal behavior and attribute it to a specific person. Thus, physical evidence, forensics, digital artifacts, eyewitness testimony, and other scientific evidence can be sufficient to prove or disprove the charge.

But in some political cases, the issue is not simply proving criminal conduct, but also establishing a political narrative. In this situation, the defendant’s confession can take on a propaganda and political role beyond its evidentiary value. A confession in which a person denies not only the commission of an act but also the motivation, affiliation, goals, or legitimacy of his actions may be used to shape public opinion or legitimize the official government narrative. For this reason, human rights scholars have often described televised confessions not as a tool for discovering the truth, but as a tool for producing and establishing the official narrative.

In many cases involving protests, civic activism, journalism, union activities, or political dissent, the defendant may not deny the nature of his or her conduct. For example, he or she may openly admit that he or she participated in a rally, wrote an article, gave a speech, or criticized a government policy. The main dispute in these cases is usually not over the occurrence of the conduct, but over the legal and political interpretation of that conduct. From the defendant’s perspective, these actions may fall within the scope of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, or political participation, while the government may view them as acts against national security, propaganda against the system, or similar.

In such circumstances, a forced confession can function beyond proving guilt, because its purpose is not simply to admit to having committed an act, but to force the individual to accept the government’s legal and political narrative about that act. In other words, the individual does not simply confess to having committed an act, but also, under pressure, admits to the conclusion that his or her conduct was criminal, illegitimate, or motivated by the government’s alleged motives.

Of course, this model cannot be generalized to all political cases or to all countries. In systems based on the independence of the judiciary, even in cases related to national security or terrorism, the principle is that the accusation must be proven using independent, testable evidence and within the framework of a fair trial. However, the human rights literature shows that as the independence of the judiciary and the possibility of public oversight decrease, the likelihood of confession-based rather than evidence-based trials in political cases also increases.

Therefore, international human rights institutions have always emphasized that the validity of a trial depends not on the type of accusation, but on the observance of fundamental principles such as the independence of the court, the right to access to a lawyer, the right to remain silent, the prohibition of torture, and the reliance of the verdict on independent evidence. Whenever a confession obtained under duress becomes the most important or only evidence to prove the accusation, the risk of violating a fair trial and abusing the criminal process increases significantly.

The prohibition of torture in international law is the result of a combination of several historical and normative developments: the Enlightenment critique of judicial violence, the reform of the rules of proof, the expansion of the concept of human dignity, the experience of state crimes in World War II, and the formation of the international human rights system. The result of these developments is the creation of an absolute, unwaivable, and peremptory rule from which states cannot deviate, even in situations of war, terrorism, or emergency.

The invalidity of confessions obtained under torture is a logical consequence of this prohibition. Such confessions are not only unreliable due to the circumstances in which they were obtained, but also constitute a violation of human dignity, the right to silence, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial. Their use also sends a message to state officials that the judicial system is prepared to exploit the results of unlawful violence.

Therefore, forced confessions cannot be considered merely a formal flaw in criminal investigations. The extraction and use of such confessions involve a series of interrelated violations: torture or ill-treatment, deprivation of freedom of will, forced self-incrimination, violation of the principle of innocence, deprivation of a fair trial and, in cases of public disclosure, invasion of the dignity and privacy of the individual. For this reason, the prohibition of the use of forced confessions is considered one of the fundamental indicators of the independence of the judiciary and the degree of a government’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

From the restriction of political freedoms to the securitization of political opposition

From the perspective of political science and human rights, the formation of political opposition is not an exceptional or unnatural phenomenon, but rather a natural consequence of social life and governance. In every society, there are disagreements about how to govern the country, economic policies, resource distribution, the fight against corruption, government accountability, social justice, and the observance of fundamental rights and freedoms. The existence of these disagreements in themselves is not only not a threat to public order, but is also a factor in the reform and dynamism of political systems.

In democratic systems, the law recognizes these differences and provides legal mechanisms for their expression and pursuit. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to form parties, free elections, independent media, non-governmental organizations, and an independent judiciary are the most important tools that enable the transfer of protest from the streets to political institutions. In such systems, political opponents are not considered enemies of the government or the nation, but rather part of the process of political competition. Opposition parties can participate in elections, criticize the government’s performance, present alternative programs, and, if they attract public support, seize political power through legal mechanisms.

The experience of many established democracies, including Western European countries, Canada, Australia, and Japan, shows that the existence of a legal opposition has not only not weakened government, but has also been a factor in increasing accountability, reducing corruption, reforming public policies, and preventing excessive concentration of power. Even in the United States, Britain, Germany, and France, widespread social protests, strikes, civil movements, and opposition party activity are a normal part of political life, and the principle is that these activities are protected by freedom of speech and freedom of assembly as long as they are carried out within the framework of the law.

In contrast, a significant body of literature on authoritarian and totalitarian regimes suggests that the curtailment of political, social, and civil liberties gradually reduces the possibility of legitimate expression of dissent. When independent media are restricted, opposition parties are prevented from operating effectively, competitive elections are undermined, civil society institutions are suppressed, and the possibility of free criticism of the government is eliminated, political protests are transferred to informal or street arenas rather than being managed within formal institutions.

In such circumstances, instead of distinguishing between “political opposition” and “security threat,” governments may redefine any organized opposition or even public criticism in terms of concepts such as enemy, foreign agent, disruptor, subversive, spy, or threat to national security. Political scientists consider this process a kind of “securitization” of political opposition; that is, an issue that is inherently political is represented as a security threat, and as a result, its treatment is transferred from the realm of political competition to the realm of security and criminal measures.

One consequence of this securitization is the changing function of the criminal justice system. In such a situation, the goal is not simply to address specific criminal behavior, but also to create an official narrative about the dissident. Hence, forced confessions, show trials, media propaganda, political labeling, and harsh punishments can become tools to solidify this narrative. The political dissident is no longer simply presented as someone with a different point of view, but is represented as an enemy of the nation, a troublemaker, dependent on foreign powers, or a threat to the existence of the country; a narrative that can provide the necessary social context to justify repression.

In such an environment, the effects of this policy are not only directed at political opponents, but also affect the entire society. When citizens see that freely expressing their opinions, criticizing the government’s performance, civic activism, or participating in protests may be accompanied by heavy security and criminal costs, many of them prefer to withdraw from political participation. In the political science literature, this situation is described with concepts such as the “deterrent effect” and “self-censorship”; that is, individuals refrain from expressing their views or participating in the public sphere not because they change their minds, but because they fear possible consequences.

As a result, a significant portion of society is pushed into a passive state, or what is sometimes called the “gray stratum” in Iranian political literature. This situation does not necessarily mean that citizens are satisfied with the performance of the government, but rather it can indicate a reduced sense of security for political participation, a decline in public trust in official institutions, and an increase in the costs of civic action. From a human rights perspective, such a process not only restricts freedom of expression and freedom of political participation, but also undermines the possibility of peaceful reform of political structures and holding those in power accountable.

For this reason, international human rights instruments emphasize the principle that governments should use civil, political, and legal mechanisms to manage disputes, even in the face of the most severe criticism. Guarantees of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, independence of the media, and independence of the judiciary are not merely individual rights of citizens, but also tools for preventing political disputes from degenerating into security crises and persistent cycles of repression and violence.

The political science and human rights literature shows that many authoritarian and undemocratic governments, regardless of their ideology or political structure, resort to a range of tools that restrict human rights in order to maintain their monopoly on power. Restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of the media, freedom of association and assembly, arbitrary detention, unfair trials, censorship, intimidation, mass surveillance, torture, forced confessions, and in some cases, enforced disappearances or executions of opponents are among the methods documented in human rights reports on authoritarian governments in various regions of the world. The common goal of these measures is to increase the cost of political dissent and create an environment in which a large segment of society refrains from active participation in the public sphere for fear of possible consequences. However, historical experience shows that repression, although it may lead to apparent silence or a decrease in social activism at certain points in time, does not necessarily lead to the disappearance of political and social demands. Social and political movements usually continue their path in new formats, through subsequent generations, new organizations or different forms of collective action; although this process is often accompanied by heavy human, social, economic and time costs for citizens and society. For this reason, many researchers believe that guaranteeing fundamental freedoms, the possibility of legal activity of opponents and the existence of independent institutions for the expression and peaceful resolution of disputes are of fundamental importance not only from the perspective of human rights, but also from the perspective of political stability and sustainable development.

Footnotes:

1- European Court of Human Rights. (2010). Gäfgen v. Germany , Application No. 22978/05, Grand Chamber Judgment.

2- International Court of Justice. (2012). Questions relating to the obligation to prosecute or extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Judgment . ICJ Reports 2012 .

3- Langbein, J.H. (1977). Torture and the law of evidence: Europe and England in the Ancien Régime . University of Chicago Press.

4- Langbein, JH (1978). Torture and plea bargaining. University of Chicago Law Review, 46 (1), 3–22.

5- Luban, D. (2009). Human dignity, humiliation, and torture. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 19 (3), 211–230.

6- Prosecutor v. Furundžija, Case No. IT-95-17/1-T, Judgment (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, December 10, 1998).

7- Waldron, J. (2005). Torture and positive law: Jurisprudence for the White House. Columbia Law Review, 105 (6), 1681–1750.