Introduction: From political crisis to normative crisis The political developments in Iran in recent years cannot be analyzed simply in terms of a recurring cycle of “protest-repression.” What happened in the recent uprising—and especially the government’s response to it—reflects the entry of the Islamic Republic’s political order into a qualitatively different phase. At this stage, […]...

About 300 years ago, Francois Voltaire, one of the famous philosophers of the Enlightenment era, believed: “There must be a distinction between sin and crime.” Just looking at articles 114 to 119 of the Islamic Penal Code, which was passed in 2013, and the guidelines for repentance that were recently announced by the head of […]...