IRAN: Iran's hardline judiciary yesterday announced a ban on torture, bolstering long held international claims of repression within the country's rigid legal system.
"Any torture to extract confession is banned and confessions extracted through torture are not legitimate and legal," said the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi.
In a 15-point directive issued to the judiciary and security forces, the ayatollah said that "blindfolding, restraining, pestering and insulting detainees must be avoided during arrest, interrogation and investigation".
He also stressed that detainees cannot be deprived of their right to a lawyer, that unnecessary detentions must be avoided and confessions must be written and verified by the accused.
His comments echoed long held assertions by human rights activists that torture, arbitrary detentions and solitary confinement are the norm in a legal system based on a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Analysts questioned the timing of his order, which comes just two months after conservatives swept to power in parliamentary elections plagued by disputes. The announcement also came during a visit to Iran by a delegation of leading British legal experts.
"Its no coincidence," said political analyst Mr Hossein Rassam. "The conservatives are now ready to show as much leniency and co-operation as they can. This is the message that they're trying to send out."
Also yesterday, Iran's reformist president, Ayatollah Mohammad Khatami, came out publicly and said that Iran holds political prisoners. "Absolutely, we do have political prisoners. There are those who are in prison for their beliefs," he was quoted as saying in an Iranian newspaper.
Some of those political prisoners have publicly declared their mistreatment by security and intelligence officials. Mr Ahmad Batebi, a 26-year old student detained in 1999 for being photographed at a student rally holding the bloodied T-shirt of a friend, wrote an open letter to the authorities detailing his torture.
Human rights activists remained sceptical about whether the new line on torture would be put into effect.