Dr. Seyed Emami’s relatives raised doubts about the claim that he committed suicide, but the regime forced them to bury him without an independent autopsy. The increasingly common “suicides” by prisoners stem from Iran’s inordinate reliance on “confessions” in convicting defendants. I analyzed numerous legal cases and around 300 prison memoirs for a book about forced confessions. To obtain such “confessions,” interrogators in Iran rely heavily on psychological and physical pressures. The confessions continue to be used in court, however.

Source: New York Times February 22, 2018 05:48 UTC