Judiciary defends Iran floggings

Students are pressing for greater freedom

By Jim Muir in Tehran

Amid rising concern over a recent series of public floggings, the Iranian judiciary has said that such punishments were only being inflicted on those whose crimes were themselves committed in public.

In recent weeks, several hundred young men are reported to have been publicly lashed for offences including drunkenness and harassing women.

The level of concern provoked by the spate of public floggings and several recent hangings was evident at a meeting between several senior government ministers called by the parliamentary national security committee.

They included the ministers of the interior, foreign affairs, intelligence and justice, as well as the Tehran police chief.

Newspaper accounts of the meeting said all the ministers expressed their opposition to the practice of public lashing.

Counter-productive

Most argued that it was counter-productive as a deterrent and was alienating public opinion both at home and abroad.

Harassing women can lead to a public flogging

The Tehran Police Chief, Mohsen Qalibaf, was quoted as saying the judiciary had initiated the flogging campaign without regard to the law and without coordinating with the law enforcement agencies.

Clearly on the defensive, the deputy head of the judiciary told the meeting that such punishments were only being applied to those whose offences had been committed publicly, outraging public morals and sentiment.

The judiciary is widely seen as a stronghold of entrenched hardliners opposed to the reform movement.

The crackdown on what it regards as moral corruption among young people has caused widespread unease and it has become the latest issue in the ongoing struggle between the hardliners and reformists.

It has also triggered a sharp theological debate among clerics, with hardliners arguing that public floggings and hangings are an immutable element of Islamic law, while more moderate figures have said they lack Koranic justification.

President opposed

The reformist President, Mohammad Khatami, has spoken out against the practice, saying that harsh punishments were not the answer to social corruption.

President Khatami does not control the judiciary

He added that in a society rife with poverty, discrimination and corruption, young people could not be expected to stay on the straight and narrow.

Most of those critical of the floggings do not dispute the merit of the punishments themselves.

The controversy is over whether they should be carried out in public.