Did Ahmadinejad's Imam really say that?!

afsmakeup July 16, 2022

Ayatollah and Consultant

(Image from Israel National News)

The following information will need to be double- and even triple-checked by somebody with better sources than I, but here's a report -- based on allegations by Iranian dissidents -- of statements said to have been made by a leading Shi'ite religious leader in Iran.

Writing for the Israel National News, the journalist Nissan Ratzlav-Katz informs us in his article "Ahmadinejad's Imam: Islam Allows Raping, Torturing Prisoners" that "[a]ccording to Iranian pro-democracy sources," Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi gave his legal opinions on certain delicate questions concerning whether or not the use of "psychological, emotional and physical pressure" to obtain confessions was "valid and considered credible according to Islam." Concerning those queries, the ayatollah allegedly explained:

Getting a confession from any person who is against the Velayat-e Faqih ("Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists", or the regime of Iran's mullahs) is permissible under any condition.

The purported follow-up question to this opinion was likely prompted by the current rumors of rape having been perpetrated on many of the political prisoners arrested during and after the recent demonstrations in Iran over the disputed election:

Can an interrogator rape the prisoner in order to obtain a confession?

The ayatollah then reportedly made the following statement:

The necessary precaution is for the interrogator to perform a ritual washing first and say prayers while raping the prisoner.

This outrageous statement specifying the 'precaution' is then elaborated upon in a way that I'd prefer not to include on this family-safe blog, so go to the website if you really need to know the details. I'll just add this astounding judgement purportedly pronounced by the ayatollah concerning "the rape of virgin female prisoners":

If the judgment for the [female] prisoner is execution, then rape before execution brings the interrogator a spiritual reward equivalent to making the mandated Haj pilgrimage [to Mecca], but if there is no execution decreed, then the reward would be equivalent to making a pilgrimage to [the Shi'ite holy city of] Karbala.

I'd ordinarily dismiss as a false report anything so disgustingly depraved as to be literally incredible, but I've previously seen Islamic legal opinions written by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that rival this still-living ayatollah's legal decisions, so I'm not ruling out of court the possibility that Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi really does hold that rape can be a sacred religious act.

Can anyone supply confirmation . . . and if accurate, the legal reasoning of this Shi'ite cleric?

UPDATE: Regular commenter Erdal informs us about this story:

[Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi] didn't say it. This started as a dirty satire in some corner of the internet, sombody didn't get the joke, spread it as real, and you know the rest. The official party line is of course that rapes don't happen in Iran's prisons, which is as bizarre a statement as this story.

Thanks, Erdal. I've found a link to a site debunking the report.