Omid Shams, an Iranian writer in exile, a member of Danish PEN and law academic at the University of Portsmouth
The 57-page report, “Orwellian State: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s State Media as a Weapon of Mass Suppression,” is a result of a collaboration between FIDH and Justice For Iran and the outcome of more than 1,500 hours of research and analysis of over 150 programs broadcast by state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting network (IRIB) and 13 in-depth interviews with direct and indirect victims, shedding light on the long-standing practice of extracting and broadcasting forced confessions.
Between 2009 and 2019, Iranian state-owned media broadcast the forced confessions of at least 355 individuals and defamatory content against at least 505 individuals. The reports findings indicate that the broadcast of forced confessions and defamatory contents using unlawfully obtained and misrepresented private data is a vast, planned, and systematic practice that targets the widest range of victims from political dissidents to activists, artists, dual-nationals, foreign and ordinary citizens with no political activities at all. It also reveals that not only the process obtaining forced confession and private data involves various methods of torture but most importantly the broadcast of these content is considered as psychological or mental torture for the victims and their families.