Ban on Torture Issued in Iran
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TEHRAN — Iran’s judiciary chief Wednesday ordered a ban on the use of torture for obtaining confessions -- a move widely seen as the first public acknowledgment of the practice in the country.
“Any kind of torture of the accused to obtain confessions is banned, and confessions extracted through torture will not be religiously or legally legitimate,” Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said in a statement addressed to interrogators and other judicial officials.
The statement, posted on the website of Iran’s judiciary, said concealing the whereabouts of detainees and blindfolding them would also be banned. Instead, “modern” investigation techniques must be used, Shahroudi said, without elaborating.
Shahroudi’s decision is aimed at “preserving human values and civil rights,” the website said.
Human rights groups have long complained about the use of torture against detainees in Iran.
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