Iran: political crime defined by parliament in Tehran

Mahmoud Beheshti, a teacher and political prisoner currently detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, has written a letter to the outside world describing the definition of a political prisoner from the perspective of Iran’s parliament:

“Coup de grace shot by Iran’s 9^th parliament to Article 168 of the Constitution”

Finally the 9^th Islamic Council provided a definition and various examples of a political crime, bringing an end to the limbo status of Article 168 in the Constitution. Despite warnings issued by high-profile jurists, the MPs rushed to approve a bill defining political crimes in this regard. This now leaves a very wide window to repress all dissidents in Iran.

Article 1 of the new bill states that any measure with the motive of reforming the country’s affairs, against the management, political entities and the country’s domestic and foreign policies, even without actually carrying out any measures, and intending to inflict a blow to the establishment is considered a political crime. This bill explicitly emphasizes any “motivation to reform the country’s affairs” and “without intending to inflict a blow to the main principle of the state” is considered a political crime, and the relevant court or prosecutor office is in charge of clarifying this matter.

The significant issue in this regard is that in contrast to Article 168 of the Constitution that holds ordinary courts in charge of seeing into political crimes in open-door ordinary courts before a jury, article 5 of this new bill considers public and revolutionary courts residing over criminal cases in charge of this matter. Therefore, after 37 years this article of the Islamic republic constitution – being a fabrication of this regime – has lost all credibility and become useless through the worst possible means after a very rushed and illegal measure by the MPs of the 9^th parliament in Iran. The MPs literally fired a coupe de grace shot in to this article.

Mahmoud Beheshti Langrudi

January 27, 2016

Evin Prison – Tehran - Iran