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IRAN PRISON ATLAS METHODOLOGY

1. What information is recorded in the Iran Prison Atlas (IPA)?

IPA gathers as much information as is available on the following three categories:

Any political prisoner or prisoner of conscience in Iran

Any prison or detention center that holds political prisoners in Iran

Any perpetrator and court that tries political prisoners or prisoners of conscience in Iran.

Within these three categories, IPA records and disaggregates important data that provides factual and legal information on individual prisoners, prisons, and perpetrators. This data is published under individual profiles and in IPA’s statistical section, the latter of which reveals trends in the human rights situation of political prisoners. For example, IPA collects information on:

The biodata of a prisoner (i.e. gender, religion, ethnicity)

The impugned activity of a prisoner

The legal charges against a prisoner

The detention status of a prisoner

The legal violations committed against a prisoner

For more details about the data collected by IPA, including how we define the terminology used in the database, visit our Glossary of Terms.

2. How is the information collected?

IPA’s researchers collect information through:

Conducting direct interviews with prisoners, prisoners’ families, witnesses, or other informed sources

Collecting, categorizing, and validating information available in the media and other news sources

3. How does the IPA define a ‘political prisoner’?

There is no universally accepted definition for “political prisoner” under international law. The term “political prisoner” is used and applied differently among activists, governments, and international human rights organizations. IPA’s definition of “political prisoner” is modeled after the guidelines established by the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe and the legal categories for “arbitrary detention” established by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

IPA considers a “political prisoner” to be anyone who is deprived of his or her personal liberty:

if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in particular, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association, and the right to express one’s culture, traditions, and language;

if the detention has been imposed for purely political reasons or without any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty;

if the detention is the result of proceedings that were clearly unfair or without due process;

if, for political motives, the length of the detention or its conditions are clearly out of proportion to the offense the individual has been found guilty of or is suspected of;

Or

if, for political motives, the individual is detained in a discriminatory manner as compared to other persons.

Within this definition, IPA makes some important exceptions.

First, IPA excludes cases where a person is arrested or detained for engaging in hateful or violent acts against others on the basis of gender, religion, race, sexuality, ethnicity, or immigration status.

Second, IPA excludes cases where a person is arrested or detained for using violence against civilians unless there is evidence that the accusations are baseless and there have been serious due process violations.

Third, given the overwhelming prevalence of due process violations in Iranian criminal cases, IPA excludes cases that do not have any connection to a political motive.

Fourth, IPA excludes cases that lack sufficient information to be properly categorized.

4. What kind of violations are entered in the IPA?

As mentioned above, IPA is a database of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Iran. This means that the Iranian government has arrested, detained, or imprisoned these individuals because of their political ideology, identity, or the exercise of their fundamental rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. IPA focuses especially on prisoners targeted because of the exercise of or their advocacy for:

Political and civil rights

Racial and ethnic minority rights

Religious rights

Indigenous rights

Gender, sexual identity, and reproductive rights

Disability rights

Labor rights

Once a political prisoner has been listed in the database, our researchers also document human rights violations that occur during the legal process and during imprisonment. These violations fall into the following categories:

Arbitrary detention

Arbitrary execution

Denial of due process or fair trial

Discrimination

Torture and/or inhuman and degrading treatment

The violations entered into the atlas are based on international human rights treaties ratified by the Iranian government, as well as basic principles adopted by the United Nations, customary international law, and peremptory norms. Iran is a State Party to:

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (r. 1968)

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (r. 1975)

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (r. 1975)

Convention on the Rights of the Child (r. 1994)

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (r. 2009)

It is important to note that we record human rights violations as defined under both Iranian law and international law. Where possible, we use one common definition. Where the definition of a right or a violation diverges in Iranian and international law, we track violations under both definitions. Nevertheless, for our statistical analysis, we will rely on the definition that provides the standard that most favours the prisoner. For a full list of the violations recorded by IPA, see our Glossary of Violations.

5. What kind of charges are entered in the IPA?

IPA records all the charges against a political prisoner in the timeline section of their individual profile. However, for our statistical analysis, we only enter political charges for which an activist is convicted. For a list of the most frequently recorded political charges in the database, visit our Glossary of Charges.

6. What is the difference between a prisoner’s impugned activity and their legal charge?

In the case of political prisoners, charges brought by the state are generally for political reasons. Nevertheless, these charges are usually linked to specific conduct or actions taken by a political prisoner, often in the form of exercising a fundamental freedom or right. Where possible, the IPA records the “impugned activity” of a political prisoner, which is the activity that has provoked the arrest. However, due to the political nature of most cases, the impugned activity and the charged activity may be different. Often the charged activity is the pretext for arresting a political prisoner, whereas the impugned activity is the basis for which the political prisoner is targeted.

For example, a dual national who travels to Iran as an academic to carry out research may be charged with “collaboration with a hostile government” or “espionage”. However the impugned activity -- i.e. the activity for which they are targeted politically -- is the research they were conducting or the mere fact that they possess dual nationality.

For a list of the most common impugned activities recorded by the IPA, visit our Glossary of Impugned Activities.

7. Which courts investigate political cases and how does IPA register them?

In Iran, the prosecution of criminal cases starts in the dadsara. Generally, bazporses, prosecutors and dadyars start their investigation after receiving their reports from judicial agents and are responsible for issuing arrest warrants, if necessary. In political cases, the IRGC and Ministry of Intelligence exert influence over these positions, which plays a significant role in determining the outcome of investigations.

If the dadsara concludes that there is enough evidence to proceed, the case goes to the relevant court and the judge will decide whether the accused is acquitted or convicted, as well as the resulting sentence.

IPA considers clerical and military courts as specialised courts. Although there are many of these courts across the country, IPA has created a single unified profile for each specialised court. Their profiles can be found under Special Clerical Dadsara and Court and Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces. This means that regardless of where an individual is arrested or tried, if their case is under the purview of a specialised court, all legal violations will be registered under the unified court profile.

Unless a case falls within a specialised court, IPA does not divide criminal courts based on the type of court. Although Article 294 of the Code of Criminal Procedure divides the court system into sub-categories such as Criminal Court 1, Criminal Court 2, Revolutionary Court, Children and Teenagers’ Court, it is in many cases very difficult to accurately verify the court in a given case. To avoid misinformation, IPA does not distinguish between these courts and instead registers the provincial courthouse where the case is tried as the relevant judicial institution. IPA follows this same convention for appeals courts as well.

In cases where IPA researchers are aware of the presiding judge, the case will also be registered under the presiding judge’s profile in the database.

Rulings confirmed by the Supreme Court are registered on the Supreme Court’s profile as well as the presiding judge(s)’ profile(s), if they are known. In future, IPA will also register statistical information about cases where the Supreme Court has refused to grant leave, or cases where the Supreme Court has granted the appeal and sent the case back to the lower court.

8. How does IPA attribute a legal violation to a judge or other perpetrator?

IPA registers legal violations at all stages of the legal process in politically motivated cases. These stages are defined as follows:

Pre-trial stage: This stage begins the moment an individual is arrested or summoned to Dadsara for political motives until their trial.

Trial stage: This stage spans the entirety of the accused’s trial period until the verdict. In cases of a conviction, this includes the sentencing hearing.

Appeals stage: If a prisoner chooses to appeal their conviction or sentence, they enter this stage which encompasses their appeals submission until the appeals verdict.

Post-conviction stage: This stage spans the entirety of a prisoner's time in which they serve their sentence, whether they have been sentenced to imprisonment, exile, or another form of institutional punishment.

Various officials within the judiciary are involved in, and in charge of, each stage of the legal process. Depending on when the legal violation happens, IPA researchers will attribute the violation to the judicial official most responsible for that stage of the legal process. However, many political cases are shrouded in secrecy, which makes it very difficult for IPA researchers to obtain information on each stage of a political prisoner’s case, and even more so, to identify each and every perpetrator responsible for the human rights violations committed against them. As such, IPA registers and attributes violations not only to the named perpetrators, but also to the judicial office and/or court during each stage of the legal process as follows:

Violations during the pre-trial phase are recorded on the profile of the provincial courthouse of the province where the violation has occurred.

Violations during the trial phase are recorded on the profile of the provincial courthouse of the province where the violation has occurred. Where possible, IPA researchers will include the name of the trial judge(s) or other responsible judicial officials, as well as the court, under both the prisoner and perpetrator profiles.

Violations during the appeals phase are recorded on the profile of the provincial appeals court of the province where the violation has occurred or on the profile of the Supreme Court. Where possible, IPA researchers will include the name of the appeals judge(s) or other responsible judicial officials, as well as the court, under both the prisoner and perpetrator profiles. Branch 36 and 54 of the Tehran Appeals Court and a few other branches of the Supreme Court are the most prominent for imposing sentences on political prisoners, and are therefore the only branches we record specifically.

Violations during the post-conviction stage are recorded on the profile of the provincial courthouse of the province where the prisoner is imprisoned. Where possible, IPA researchers will include the name of the enforcement judge(s) or other responsible prison officials under both the prisoner and perpetrator profiles.

Violations during the pre-trial, trial, and appeals stages of cases which have been sentenced by the Special Clerical Dadsara and Court and Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces are recorded respectively on the profiles of the Special Clerical Dadsara and Court and Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces.

Where a prisoner is held in detention throughout any of these phases, IPA also registers the violations under the detention centre or prison’s profile.

9. What is included in IPA’s statistical section?

Although IPA researchers are aware that IRI authorities commonly violate a plethora of domestic and international rights to which prisoners are entitled, we only record the most egregious violations, which are regularly reported in media, NGO reports, and other human rights documentation efforts, in our statistical section. The reason for this narrowed scope is to ensure that our statistics are accurate and representative. Including data on violations that are not widely reported across the country would be misleading and lead to erroneous analyses and conclusions.

IPA also records details about a prisoner’s case that may not amount to legal violations but that have statistical value nevertheless. For example, IPA records a prisoner’s hunger strike, which is defined as a prisoner’s refusal to eat solid foods, to receive intravenous fluids, or to take any nutrients for at least seven days. IPA also monitors when a furlough has been denied to a prisoner after a reasonable period based on Article 214 POR.

With respect to the length of prisoners’ sentences, the statistical section only includes the actual sentence prescribed under Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code, especially in cases where a prisoner has been sentenced on multiple charges.

It is important to note that we display the length of a prison sentence by the number of years and months. If the sentence length also includes a number of days, a length of 15 days or shorter is not counted, but a length of more than 15 days is counted as a full month. For example, a prison sentence of three months and 15 days is displayed as a three-month sentence, whereas a prison sentence of three months and 16 days is displayed as a four-month sentence. The exact length of each sentence is available on the relevant profile timeline. Moreover, when a prisoner must serve multiple sentences consecutively, the final sentence, which is the total sum of all the sentences, is displayed under Total Verdicts. When a prisoner's sentence is reduced by virtue of a pardon, a commutation, or other similar reasons, but either the court that has granted the reduction is not known, or the sentence is reduced by an institution independent of the court that has investigated the case, the new sentence is displayed under Other.

10. What is the minimum criteria for creating the profile of a political prisoner or prisoner of conscience?

If an arrestee is identified as a possible political prisoner, IPA will only register their profile in the following circumstances:

The arrestee is detained for a minimum period of two weeks in pre-trial detention;

or

The arrestee is convicted of a charge and sentenced to prison, corporal punishment, or a fine of more than $200 USD.

11. What is the reason for citing the source in some cases and not citing in other cases?

All public sources are cited through hyperlinks in the “timeline” section of the IPA profiles. In some cases, IPA does not list certain sources in order to protect the security of our contacts. For some older entries, IPA sources, including online links, are no longer available. IPA researchers have implemented a new citation method that will preserve all sources moving forward, and we are in the process of updating our older entries, where possible. However, some of these older sources may not be retrievable.

If you have any questions about our sources in a particular case, you can email ipa[at]united4iran.org and we will respond to your request within a reasonable time frame.

12. I know someone who has been arrested in Iran for ideological or political reasons. Why can't I find their name in the IPA?

IPA endeavours to include all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the atlas, where there is sufficient information available on their case. If you do not see someone that you believe belongs in the atlas, it may be for one of the following reasons:

The person may have been in pre-trial detention for less than two weeks.

IPA researchers may deliberately avoid recording some arrests to keep people safe. This happens in very rare cases.

IPA researchers may be in the process of validating information related to the person and/or the case.

IPA researchers may not have enough information about the prisoner and/or the case.

The person you are considering may not be classified as a political prisoner based on the definition mentioned above.

The person may have been arrested and released before the IPA officially re-launched in March 2016.