Amnesty International 2003 report: Iran:
Scores of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, were arrested. Others continued to be held in prolonged detention without trial or were serving prison sentences imposed after unfair trials. Some had no access to lawyers or family. Freedom of expression and association continued to be restricted by the judiciary, and scores of students, journalists and intellectuals were detained.
At least 113 people, including long-term political prisoners, were executed, frequently in public and some by stoning, and 84 were flogged, many in public.
The judiciary responded to expressions of social and political criticism with mounting curbs on freedom of expression and association, including arbitrary arrests; politically motivated prosecutions of students, writers, academics, members of parliament and prominent advocates of reform; and the arbitrary closure of pro-reform publications. Unfair trials, especially of such people, as well as torture and televised "confessions" continued to be reported. The judiciary used the death penalty and judicial sentences of flogging as a means of punishment in cases relating to freedom of expression. |
