Iranian prisoners under duress to vote, threatened with lashings - report

Prisoners in Iran are being forced to vote in the country’s presidential elections under the threat of extended prison time and or up to 74 lashings, according to a Kurdish human rights group cited by Iran International in a report published on Friday. 

The Kurdish group shared alleged photos sent to the prisoners, where they were instructed that they and their families must vote or risk penalties, which could see their sentences increased by up to 6 months.

The alleged threats came as Iran faced the lowest voter turnout in Tehran’s history, with only 7% of people voting in the capital city and 24% nationwide.

Student groups, women’s organizations, and numerous other bodies have called for election boycotts.

How do Iranian elections work?

Iranians will choose between mostly hardline candidates in an early presidential election on Friday following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.

Only six candidates from over 80 hopefuls survived screening by the hardline Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state. Two hardline candidates dropped out of the race ahead of the election.

The president, who runs the government day to day and is particularly responsible for Iran's struggling economy, ultimately answers to the Supreme Leader.

Presidential candidate Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf

A former Iran Revolutionary Guards commander and ally of Khamenei, Qalibaf is the current speaker of the hardline-dominated parliament. He previously ran unsuccessfully for president twice and was compelled to withdraw from a third bid in 2017 to prevent a divided hardline vote in Raisi's initial failed presidential attempt.

In 2005, Qalibaf resigned from the Guards to run for president. Following his unsuccessful campaign, he assumed the position of Tehran mayor with the supreme leader's endorsement, a role he occupied for 12 years.

In 2009, Qalibaf took credit as Tehran mayor for helping suppress months of bloody unrest that rocked the establishment after a presidential vote that opposition candidates said was rigged to secure hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

To civil rights activists, he is known as someone who crushed protests as national police chief, personally beating demonstrators in 1999, and also played an active role in repressing unrest in 2003. Qalibaf did not reply to a request for comment on those allegations.

Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili

Jalili is a hardline diplomat who lost his right leg in the 1980s when fighting for the Guards in the Iran-Iraq war. Holder of a PhD in political science, Jalili has declared being a pious believer in Iran's "velayat-e faqih," or rule by supreme jurisprudence, a system of Islamic government that provides the basis for Khamenei's position.

Appointed by Khamenei, Jalili served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for five years from 2007, a position that automatically made him chief nuclear negotiator. Jalili also served four years in Khamenei's office and was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2013 presidential election.

A former deputy foreign minister, Jalili was appointed by Khamenei in 2013 as a member of the Expediency Council, a body that mediates disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council.

Presidential candidate Massoud Pezeshkian

An Iranian lawmaker of Azeri ethnicity, Pezeshkian is the only moderate candidate approved by the Guardian Council and backed by the pro-reform camp. His prospects depend on attracting millions of disillusioned voters who have stayed home in elections since 2020.

A physician by profession, Pezeshkian served as the health minister under reformist President Mohammad Khatami from 2001 to 2005 and has been a member of parliament since 2008.

Pezeshkian has been vocal in his criticism of the Islamic Republic for its lack of transparency about the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman in 2022 that sparked several months of unrest.

Pezeshkian was barred from the 2021 presidential election.

Presidential candidate Mostafa Pourmohammadi

The only cleric in the race, Pourmohammadi served as interior minister from 2005 until 2008 during the first term of hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He was deputy intelligence minister from 1990 to 1999, and rights groups have alleged that he played a role in the assassinations inside Iran of several prominent dissident intellectuals in 1998. He has not commented on the allegations, but an Intelligence Ministry statement in 1998 said: "A small number of irresponsible, deviant and rogue agents of the ministry who were most likely puppets of others committed these assassinations that were in the interest of foreigners.”

Human Rights Watch, in a 2005 report, documented Pourmohammadi's alleged role in the execution of hundreds of political prisoners in the Iranian capital in 1988.

Pourmohammadi has never publicly addressed allegations about his role in a so-called "death committee" in 1988 comprising religious judges, prosecutors, and intelligence ministry officials who oversaw the executions.