This report is prepared as a continuation of a previous series on the “perpetrators and executors of judicial repression in Iran”; a series that examined the role of judges and judicial officials in issuing death sentences and heavy prison terms. However, focusing solely on the role of judges reveals only part of the reality of judicial repression. In many cases, the verdicts issued by Revolutionary Courts are the product of a process that begins before a case enters the courtroom and is formed within security structures.
This report addresses the stage that precedes the court; the stage in which arrest, interrogation, extraction of confessions, and the construction of the case narrative take place. At this stage, security institutions acting as judicial agents shape the content of the case file, determine the direction of accusations, and in many cases influence the final outcome. Understanding this phase is essential to understanding how death sentences and long-term imprisonment are produced in Iran.
Who Is a Security Judicial Agent and Why Is This Role Decisive
Within Iran’s judicial system, judicial agents are defined as officials responsible for executing judicial orders, identifying suspects, and submitting reports to judicial authorities. Within the legal framework, this position is intended to play a supportive role for the judiciary, and final decision-making should rest with judicial authorities.
However, in political and security cases, this role undergoes a fundamental transformation in practice. Security institutions acting as judicial agents exercise full control over the process; from identification and arrest to interrogation and the drafting of the final report. In this framework, the agent is not merely a transmitter of information, but plays a primary role in shaping the case narrative and determining its direction.
Based on documented patterns in security cases, these institutions construct and consolidate the case narrative before the effective involvement of the prosecutor and judge. The reports produced at this stage, which are often based on interrogations and extracted confessions, later find their way into indictments and even court rulings.
As a result, what is presented to the court as a judicial case is, in many instances, not the outcome of an independent judicial investigation, but the product of a process formed within security institutions. This situation transforms the role of security agents in practice from an executive function into a decisive role in determining the fate of cases.
Primary Institutions Producing Security Cases
The fabrication of cases in political and security matters in Iran is not an individual or random process; rather, it takes place within a network of security, law enforcement, and judicial institutions, each responsible for a part of the process of arrest, interrogation, narrative construction, and control of the defense.
Ministry of Intelligence and Ward 209 of Evin Prison
The Ministry of Intelligence is one of the primary institutions involved in arrest and interrogation in political, student, labor, ethnic, and religious cases. Ward 209 of Evin Prison, which has been identified in numerous reports as a detention and interrogation facility under the control of this institution, plays a significant role in the initial formation of case files. In cases such as that of Ahmadreza Djalali, prolonged detention in Ward 209, solitary confinement, interrogation, and video-recorded confessions demonstrate how the trajectory of a case is shaped before it enters the courtroom.
IRGC Intelligence and Ward 2-A of Evin Prison
In recent years, the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has played a central role in sensitive cases, including those involving environmental activists, dual nationals, media activists, and protesters. Ward 2-A of Evin Prison, attributed to this institution, is frequently associated with prolonged solitary confinement, extended interrogations, psychological pressure, and the extraction of confessions. The case of Niloufar Bayani and other environmental activists is a clear example; prolonged interrogations, threats, solitary confinement, and later retracted confessions became integral parts of the case process.
Security Police and Cyber Police in Street and Online Arrests
Security police, public security police, and cyber police are typically at the front line of street arrests, protests, online cases, and initial summons. These institutions contribute to the formation of the case through identification, arrest, confiscation of personal devices, monitoring of mobile phones, and tracking of online activity. The case of Sattar Beheshti, who died in detention after being arrested by cyber police, shows that the initial stage of arrest and interrogation can itself lead to severe and irreversible human rights violations.
Judiciary Protection Unit and Control Over Defense
The Judiciary Protection Unit, unlike the Ministry of Intelligence or IRGC Intelligence, plays a role primarily in internal control and in restricting the defense process. Through oversight of judicial personnel, pressure on independent lawyers, control over access to case files, and alignment of proceedings with a security-oriented perspective, this institution contributes to reinforcing case fabrication. Its significance lies in limiting the defense and preventing effective challenges to the security narrative at the judicial stage.
Unofficial Detention Centers and Undisclosed Security Facilities
Alongside known wards such as Ward 209 and Ward 2-A of Evin Prison, part of the interrogation process and initial detention of political and security suspects takes place in unofficial detention centers, safe houses, and undisclosed security facilities. These locations are typically outside public oversight and without access for family members or legal counsel. They are especially significant in the initial stage of detention; when the individual is held in complete isolation, subjected to pressure, threats, and interrogation, and when the initial narrative of the case is constructed.
From Arrest to Forced Confession; The First Stage of Case Construction
Arbitrary Arrests
Case fabrication in security cases typically begins at the moment of arrest; when individuals are detained, often without effective access to a judicial warrant, and transferred to security facilities. In security cases, this stage has repeatedly been associated with arbitrary arrest, detention without clear charges, and transfer to security-controlled locations.
Sattar Beheshti was arrested in 2012 by cyber police and died shortly thereafter in detention. This case demonstrates that the initial stage of arrest and interrogation can result in severe and irreversible human rights violations even before formal judicial proceedings begin.
Solitary Confinement
Following arrest, transfer to solitary confinement or security wards is one of the primary tools used to break the psychological resistance of detainees. Wards such as 209, 2-A, 240, and facilities operated by security police are associated with prolonged solitary confinement, constant lighting, sleep deprivation, and psychological pressure.
Ahmadreza Djalali was held for seven months in Ward 209 of Evin Prison after his arrest by the Ministry of Intelligence; including three months in solitary confinement. He stated that in order to obtain confessions, he was forced to read pre-written texts in front of a camera. These confessions were later broadcast on state television and used in the process leading to his death sentence.
Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi; Arrest of Elite Students and Use of Security Mechanisms
The case of Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi, two elite students of Sharif University of Technology, demonstrates that this mechanism is not limited to street protesters. Documented sources report violent arrest, 60 days of solitary confinement in Ward 209, torture, and reliance on confessions that were later retracted in court. Both were ultimately sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Revolutionary Court.
Denial of Access to Legal Counsel
Denial of access to a lawyer of one’s choosing removes the interrogation stage from independent oversight. Note to Article 48 of the Criminal Procedure Code restricts the right to freely choose legal counsel during the preliminary investigation phase in security cases. This limitation effectively removes the stage in which arrest, interrogation, psychological pressure, and case narrative construction occur from the supervision of independent legal defense.
Cutting Contact with Family
Cutting communication with family and the outside world is part of the stage in which interrogators exercise maximum control over detainees. It eliminates the possibility of early documentation of torture, objection to detention, or preparation of a defense. This results in a form of incommunicado detention in which individuals are deprived of effective contact with family and legal counsel for days, weeks, or months.
Physical and Psychological Pressure
Physical and psychological pressure to break detainees is not incidental, but forms the foundation of constructing the security narrative. In numerous political and security cases, prisoners and their families have reported beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, threats against family members, denial of medical treatment, and prolonged interrogations.
In the case of environmental activists, particularly Niloufar Bayani, reports describe interrogations lasting 9 to 12 hours, eight months of solitary confinement, sexual threats, threats against family members, and approximately 1200 hours of interrogation.
Forced Confessions
The outcome of these pressures in many cases is the extraction of written or video-recorded confessions. In documented cases, confessions are sometimes pre-written, sometimes rehearsed and repeated, and sometimes recorded before the formation of a court.
In the case of protesters from November 2019, Saeid Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi were identified and arrested, transferred to security institutions, subjected to solitary confinement, torture, and video-recorded confessions. This example illustrates the trajectory of “police identification → transfer to security institutions → confession → sentence.”
The use of prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, constant lighting, threats against family, and psychological pressure is aimed at forcing detainees to accept security-driven narratives. These confessions are then reproduced in indictments, court proceedings, or state media, and instead of being subjected to independent investigation, they become part of the official case file.
Predicting the Verdict in the Interrogation Room
In documented cases, including those of Ahmadreza Djalali, Niloufar Bayani, Sattar Beheshti, and Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi, a consistent pattern of arrest, solitary confinement, denial of legal counsel, and pressure to extract confessions can be observed. In these cases, interrogation is not merely a stage for discovering truth; rather, it is part of a process in which the outcome of the case is predetermined and the interrogator seeks to compel the detainee to accept it.
Threats of execution, prolonged solitary confinement, cutting contact with family, and denial of legal counsel create an environment in which detainees are confronted with a pre-designed scenario. In such circumstances, confessions are not the product of free will, but the result of pressure, fear, and complete control over detention conditions.
In some cases, detainees have reported that confessions were written by interrogators and that they were required to repeat the same text during interrogation or in front of a camera. Even tone, manner of speech, and facial expression may be controlled in order to align the “confession” with the security narrative.
This process is not limited to the interrogation room. Confessions obtained before trial are broadcast through state television programs or official media reports; an act that violates the presumption of innocence and prepares public opinion to accept the verdict prior to judicial review.
In the case of Pouya Ghobadi, who was executed on March 31, 2026, a video attributed to him showed that when an attempt was made to record a televised interview, he removed the microphone and stated: “I will not give an interview.” This scene clearly demonstrates that such interviews are not conducted in a free and voluntary environment, but are part of a mechanism of pressure designed to force detainees to accept the security narrative.
Within such a structure, interrogation is not a preliminary stage of judicial proceedings; it is itself the point at which the verdict is produced. The court stage that follows often merely formalizes the narrative that was constructed earlier in detention, interrogation rooms, and security reports. In this mechanism, the verdict is effectively written before the trial.
Conclusion
This section has demonstrated that in political and security cases, the path of repression does not begin in the courtroom. Arbitrary arrest, solitary confinement, denial of legal counsel, cutting contact with family, physical and psychological pressure, forced confessions, and the drafting of security reports are stages that construct the core narrative of the case before it enters the court.
What has been presented in this report does not, without doubt, reflect the entirety of what has been and continues to be inflicted upon detainees and defendants. The securitization of cases by security–judicial actors has become so organized and institutionalized that it leaves little resemblance to judicial or legal processes in their classical sense.
The well-known principle that “the preservation of the system is the highest priority,” established since the time of Khomeini and maintained throughout the rule of Ali Khamenei, particularly over the past 37 years of control over security and repressive institutions, has left no space for independent investigation into the situation of detainees, prisoners, and those who have died in custody.
The volume of reports issued by international human rights bodies regarding systematic and institutionalized violations in Iran, including the UN Human Rights Council, repeated resolutions of the Third Committee and the UN General Assembly condemning severe human rights violations, and the continued extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, all point to the necessity of referring the human rights situation in Iran to the UN Security Council. The wave of executions in April 2026 further reinforces this urgency.
Continuation in Part Two
The second part of this report will examine how this narrative, once it enters the prosecutor’s office and the court, is formalized through indictments, judicial rulings, media confessions, and sentences of execution or long-term imprisonment. It will also demonstrate how the relationship between security institutions, prosecution offices, Revolutionary Courts, and state media undermines judicial independence and underscores the urgency of international accountability.
