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Tortured Confessions presents an innovative perspective on the relationship between torture and propaganda. While much has been written about the way propaganda spurs and sanctifies torture by demonizing  the enemy,  few have explored the way torture itself is used to create propaganda. Abrahamian\u27s work explores how the primary purpose of torture in Iran has been to extract ideological recantations from prisoners

Marouf, Fatma E.

English

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Book Note: Reviewing  Tortured Confessions

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Texas A&M University School of LawTexas A&M Law ScholarshipFaculty Scholarship2000Book Note: Reviewing "Tortured Confessions"Fatma E. MaroufTexas A&M University School of Law, fatma.marouf@law.tamu.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholarPart of the Law CommonsThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarshipby an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact aretteen@law.tamu.edu.Recommended CitationFatma E. Marouf, Book Note: Reviewing "Tortured Confessions", 13 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 327 (2000).Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/8772000 / Book NotesMaking development a fundamental goal of relief and assistance projectsis also an important factor of the proposed solution set. Korn contends thatthe lack of development initiatives included in current relief projectssignificantly limits the ability of aid to fully deliver relief. Programs andprojects that provide education and job-skill training to internally displacedgroups are essential if people are ever to be successfully reintegrated intotheir previous homes or introduced into new communities.This book provides a concise and informative summary of the startling re-sults of Cohen and Deng's report. In addition, the illustrative photographyoffers a glimpse of the human faces hiding behind the numbers and statis-tics. The book is an important introduction to a pervasive problem that isonly now being recognized by the international community, and should beconsidered a significant tool for formulating innovative and effective re-sponses to this ongoing crisis.-Taryn Dayne FielderTortured Confessions. By Ervand Abrahamian. Berkeley, Cal.: University ofCalifornia Press, 1999. Pp. 284. $45.00, cloth.Tortured Confessions presents an innovative perspective on the relationshipbetween torture and propaganda. While much has been written about theway propaganda spurs and sanctifies torture by demonizing "the enemy," fewhave explored the way torture itself is used to create propaganda. Abraha-mian's work explores how the primary purpose of torture in Iran has been toextract ideological recantations from prisoners. In "interviews" consideredthe "proof of proofs," prisoners affirmed the omnipotence, righteousness, andintrinsic benevolence of the authorities while depicting themselves as crimi-nals and conspirators. By videotaping these recantations and airing them onprime time TV or circulating the transcripts, the government created bothpositive propaganda for the authorities and negative propaganda against theenemy. Furthermore, while those sentenced to life in prison or death couldpotentially become revolutionary idols-symbols of uncompromising oppo-sition, heroic resistance, and ultimate self-sacrifice-those who confessedlived in shame. Since few would admit to submission under torture and risklosing self-respect and reputation, the public failed to connect torture withrecantation. Once the connection was finally made, public recantations be-came counterproductive for the regime and bored the public. By the mid-1990s, "The grand theater had turned into grade-B horror shows-minusthe suspense." Abrahamian's persuasive account exposes the intrinsic limita-tions of arguments that try to explain torture as simply the result of a "tradi-tional" regime, a desire for social discipline, or a search for security informa-Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 13tion; he binds torture instead to ideological warfare and political mobiliza-tion, the fundamental goals of military propaganda.The chronological narrative shows the cycles and changes in the use oftorture under various regimes. The physical torment and violent deaths thatcharacterized nineteenth-century Iran (and much of the world at that time)reemerged in 1953 after the Tudeh coup, albeit in a less violent form. Whilethe absence of physical violence between 1930 and 1941 turned interroga-tions into battles of wit, prisoners experienced indiscriminate beatings andwhippings between 1953 and 1958. Torture waned again in the 1960s-most Tudeh officers were released after signed "letters of regret"--only to ree-merge in the 70s, when SAVAK, the secret police, was given free reign totorture suspected criminals. Abrahamian could have started his book at thispoint, when torture became widespread and public recantations began; in-stead, he chooses to include, as almost half the book, seventy years of historyin which torture played a relatively minor role. Although the crux of Abra-hamian's argument appears in the latter half of ortured Confessions, the firsthalf plays an important part by showing that "one generation's 'torture' isanother's inconvenience" and by breaking down the notion that nations be-come more "civilized" over time. In this case, the chronological format em-phasizes the lack of systematic progress, as episodes of violence, prisondemographics, and techniques of torture recur and reinvent themselves incyclical, not linear, form.By carefully documenting the cyclical use of torture, Abrahamian demon-strates that torture techniques are not "primitive" methods discarded bymodern nations. In fact, modern notions and technological innovationsplayed a crucial role in cultivating torture in Iran. SAVAK personnel weretrained in the United States and Israel, where they learned "scientific" meth-ods to prevent unwanted deaths from "brute force." These "scientific" meth-ods included sleep deprivation, extensive solitary confinement, and an elec-tric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying themfor the victim. Although the traditional bastinado or falak-an excruciatingwhipping of the soles of the feet-remained the torture of choice, interroga-tors performing the whippings now referred to each other as "doctors" or"engineers." Technological developments also included the introduction ofthe videotape to Iran in the late 1970s. Now, tecantations could not only betaped, but "edited, polished, and, if necessary, remade from scratch," allow-ing the regime to control both their timing and content.The second half of Tortured Confessions explores the use of torture under theIslamic Republic. A fascinating aspect of this section, in addition to thebombardment of propaganda that torture helped create, is the way religioussources were manipulated and sucked dry of meaningful content. Althoughthe sharia, or Islamic Law, states that coerced confessions are void and theProphet's successors outlawed even verbal intimidation, the Islamic Repub-lic justified all types of torture as sanctioned by sharia. Two bills codifiedimportant features of sharia: the Qanon-e Ta'zir (Discretionary Punishment2000 / Book NotesLaw) and the Qanon-e Qesas (Retribution Law). Since the former permits sev-enty-four lashings for those found guilty of lying to the authorities, clericalinterrogators gave indefinite series of seventy-four lashings until they ob-tained "honest answers." The Qesas Law, which permits death by stoning,decapitation, or hanging for certain crimes was similarly abused, and peoplewere executed for crimes as ambiguous as "sowing corruption on earth."Thus, while the constitution outlawed torture and coerced confessions, nu-merous atrocities were committed during the Reign of Terror from 1981 to1988 under the guise of Ta'zir Law, which permitted corporal punishmentand voluntary confessions. In fact, the Islamic Republic marketed recanta-tions as living proof of Islam's strength. Prisoners were bombarded withpropaganda produced by these recantations, which were not only shown onclosed-circuit televisions in the prison, but also blasted by loudspeakers intosolitary cells and "coffins"-a torture apparatus that speaks for itself.Amazingly, the mass executions of 1988 have still not been discussed byWestern academics.Propaganda ordinarily provides the foundation for mistreatment, torture,and death by denying the humanity of a group of people, making them theobjects of humiliation, and, of course, eroding their credibility. In Iran, theIslamic Republic and other regimes created a vicious circle where propa-ganda not only inspired torture, but torture turned into propaganda. Abra-hamian places the phenomenon of public recantations in Iran, which endedin the mid-1990s, in the context of Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and earlymodern Europe, all of which produced recantations frighteningly similar inform, language, imagery, and metaphors. More recently, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, torture was turned into propaganda in a different way. Sadisticdeeds, particularly rapes, were videotaped by Serbs and widely shown to sol-diers after the tapes were doctored and dubbed, making it appear as thoughthe women were Serbian and the rapists Muslim or Croatian. Sexual assaults,which were conspicuously absent from Iranian prisons, surfaced in Bosnia asa crucial piece of propaganda. Although Abrahamian's account does not con-sider the case of Bosnia, it urges academics and activists alike to pay atten-tion to the ways in which technology and torture merge to facilitate power-ful new forms of propaganda.-Fatma Marouf

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