Legalized suppression of religious freedom in Iran; A misconception for Western societies
When we talk about the suppression of religious freedom in Iran, the image presented to contemporary modern people in Western societies is often fundamentally different from the reality lived in Western secular country. When it comes to religious repression, a confusing perception is the starting point for many misunderstandings. The common misconception is that in theocratic premodern nation-states like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), in the absence of the rule of law, a person or group of people has formed a totalitarian mechanism based on an ideology to suppress religious minorities. This image which is more like George Orwell's 1984 novel or āV for Vendettaā movie directed by James McTeigue makes it harder for us to understand the depth of catastrophe. The farther we go from the objective reality in such societies, the more we lose the possibility of correct interpretation, and as a result of not understanding the problem accurately, we move away from moving towards an efficient solution. In the Iranian legal system, the method of suppressing religious minorities is embedded in a completely legal way, while in some other sources of this legal system, emphasis is placed on respect for individual freedoms and the freedom of individuals to perform religious acts. This hypocritical dichotomy in the legal texts allows a corrupt and inhumane regime like IRI to suppress and kill religious minorities in a completely legal way, and at the same time, it can rely on a number of hand-picked rules among the legal sources, to justify itself in the international community. The Constitution of IRI states that "the investigation of individuals' beliefs is forbidden" and that "no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief." Also IRI always insists that Iranās Penal Code has no provisions criminalizing apostasy. But this silence of the law against the criminalisation of apostasy seems pleasant only to someone who has never practised in the Iranian legal system and has no understanding of other statutes. Article 214 of Iranās Criminal Procedure Code states: ā...The court is obliged to find the verdict of each case in the written laws and if there is no law in the case, it will issue the verdict based on valid Fiqh sources or valid Fatwas, and the courts cannot refuse to handle complaints and lawsuits and issue a verdict by the excuse of silence or defect or conciseness or conflict or ambiguity of written lawsā. The decisive fatwa of all Islamic scholars, especially Shiaās, is clear to anyone with a minimal knowledge of Shari'a system; execution of Muslim-born apostate. Legalizing the suppression of religious minorities and autonomous criminalisation of religious conversion in the Iranian legal system is a clear example of the unholy union of religion and law that has emerged objectively in IRI.Ā
Cartoon by Sharok Heidari on Iranian Christiansā resistance to the state's securitization of their status.Ā
