Tortured Confessions - Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran

"Ervand Abrahamian's cogent and engrossing history of imprisonment and resistance, drawing on a wealth of prisoner literature and testimony, chronicles the continuities and ruptures of modern Iran from the vantage points of its shackled dissidents. Readers will encounter some extraordinarily heroic men and women in this account of how Iran came to practice the techniques of ideological discipline and punishment characteristic of Inquisition Spain and Stalin's Soviet Union. Abrahamian shows how the government's mass media production of forced recantations backfired by prompting Iranians to confront the mass-scale torture used to extract them and to ask what kind of state would inflict these horrors on its citizens."—Joe Stork, Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch, Middle East and North Africa Division

List of contents

Acknowledgments 
Introduction 
1. Reza Shah 
2. Mohammad Reza Shah 
3. The Islamic Republic 
4. Tudeh Recantations 
5. Mass Executions of 1988 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 

About the author

Ervand Abrahamian is Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. His publications include Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (California, 1993).

Summary

Discusses the role of torture in Iranian politics. This book provides documentation of its use under the Shahs and of the widespread utilization of torture and public confession under the Islamic Republican governments. It is based on Amnesty International reports, prison literature, and victims' accounts.

Product details

• Authors: Ervand Abrahamian, Abrahamian Ervand
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.06.1999
• EAN: 9780520218666
• ISBN: 978-0-520-21866-6
• No. of pages: 284
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Freedom, History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Human Rights, HISTORY / Middle East / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Penology, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Middle Eastern, HISTORY / Middle East / Iran, Middle East, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Middle Eastern history, Penology and punishment, Political control and freedoms, Political oppression and persecution