Thursday 12 February 2009

Iran's Penal Code Sanctions Rape

There has already been a couple of posts on the gender discrimination demonstrated by the Islamic Government of Iran. However, permit me to bring to your attention some brutal examples.

As dictated by Article 74 of Iran's Penal Code, a woman's testimony in court is worth half that of a man's. Should a woman wish to sue a man for rape, she will need a female and three male eye-witnesses to corroborate her testimony, by virtue of Article 76; failure to do so will result in the victim woman being charged with false accusation and will bear the punishment of 80 lashes, by virtue of Article 140 of the Penal Code.


The requirement to produce witnesses to the abominable act of rape is unreasonable, due to the fact that such nearly always occurs in private - no criminal would want to be seen in the commission of their heinous act. Consequently, the female victim is left without the protection of the law - she is raped, then must remain silent about it if she wishes to avoid a State-sanctioned brutal chastisement. This conveys the message that the Islamic law in Iran favours men and rapists over gender equality and justice.


According to the finding of Special Rapporteur Coomaraswamy (U.N. DocE/CN.4/2002/83) the inequalities in law and justice in the Islamic Republic of Iran convey startling results. Should a man find out his wife has been unfaithful, he is permitted to execute her; however, the very same legal system will execute a woman who murders her husband if she found him cheating on her.


A disturbing finding of the U.N. Report of the Economic and Social Council, 6 Nov. 1990 (Doc.A/45/697), was that virgin women condemned to death were forcibly married to officials on the eve of their execution. These officials would then rape the condemned, in the belief that such would prevent her from going to Heaven. This is a blatant violation of Article 7 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, which prohibits torture, cruel or degrading treatment or punishment. This point of law was successfully argued in the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1998, (IT-95-17/1-PT) setting the precedent, which elaborated:

"Rape of a detainee by an official of the State must be considered to be a grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment given the ease with which the offender can exploit the vulnerability and weakened resistance of his victim"

No commentary can serve justice in condemning such a depraved and lamentable practice and system endorsed by the authorities in Iran. The diseased and deteriorated condition of the minds of the offiicials is illustrated by their warped belief that raping a virgin will actually serve to prevent her from entering heaven, and instead spending eternity in hell. It beggars belief what type of a 'God' these people believe in.

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous20 July, 2009

    Do you have a link to the UN Report of the economic and social council? It is not on their website.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous,

    http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N90/285/44/IMG/N9028544.pdf?OpenElement

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous24 July, 2009

    Mehrtash, that link doesn't work. The issue is serious and I'd like to see the official report that develops it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I do not know why you are experiencing difficulty, as I accessed it again without difficulty. Another way you could try is to :

    visit un.org
    click 'welcome'
    click the 'human rights tab'
    on the left hand menu, click 'documents'
    then in the search box on the right, enter 'A/45/697'
    the next page will load and click 'english'
    and the document will load.
    consult paragraph 82, but also read the entire document.

    This should work as I have just tested this method. All the best.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous19 May, 2010

    Thanks for the post. I appreciate it.

    The link didn't work for me, either, but this does:

    http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N90/285/44/IMG/N9028544.pdf?OpenElement

    The un.org cookie needs to be allowed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Mullas and Islamic gurus should come together and make some necessary changes in Islamic laws so that it should be more generous towards the women.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AAAHT- This regime has to go, as it has had 30 years to do right; however, it has proven to persistently violate every provision of human rights law.

    Furthermore, I disagree with your suggestion that the Islamic laws should be made to be 'more generous' - it is not already generous for it to become 'more generous'; there is nothing 'generous' about gender equality, just a matter of necessity.

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  8. Do you have a complete English copy of the Penal Code?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Do you have a complete English version of the Penal Code?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Do you have a complete English copy of the Penal Code?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Do you have a complete English copy of the Penal Code?

    ReplyDelete