Judge Calls for Books not Prison

The news out of Iranian courts is not usually heartwarming. But on Saturday, September 5, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that a provincial judge has decided to exchange draconian jail sentences for certain crimes with a “punishment” that could be seen as enlightened by any standard of justice: Buy and read books instead of serving a prison term.

Ghasem Naghizadeh, the presiding judge at Branch 2 of the Criminal Court in the northeastern town of Gonbad Kavous, has spotted an opportunity in the amended Islamic Penal Code of 2013. The code states that in the case of minor crimes, alternate punishments can be allowed, such as working for social services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Red Crescent. In cases where prisoners are instructed to read in exchange for serving time, before a convict starts serving his sentence, he receives a letter assigning him five books to read. He or she is then instructed to write summaries of the books and supplement them with a hadith, a narrative from the Prophet Mohammad.

According to the judge, the books are selected in a way that match the educational level of the convict and his age, from simple and easy-to-read books to more specialized and scientific ones. The money saved by not paying prison expenses is then used to buy books. So far, the judge has instructed the purchase of more than 1700 books for inclusion in the prison library or the city library.

Naghizadeh, born in 1970, has been a judge for 15 years and has presided over more than 20,000 cases.

Naghizadeh has also established a program to provide books to those who do go to prison. “Besides individual and social benefits, reading books in prison reduces fights among prisoners,” he said. “One of the reasons for committing crimes is ignorance.”

“Prison inflicts irreversible material and mental damage on the convict and his family,” he said, “and alternate punishments instead of prison can reduce this damage.” He argued that alternate punishments increase the ability of the convict to reintegrate into society and decrease tendencies toward anti-social behavior. A side benefit, he said, is that no money is spent on keeping, feeding, clothing and guarding the convict in jail.

Of course, the convict must meet certain criteria in order to be entitled to this type of alternate punishment. He or she must be a first-time offender and the crime must be a minor one.

Like all judges in the Islamic Republic, Judge Naghizadeh is a cleric. He said that conventional and traditional methods for dealing with prisoners were no longer working and alternate punishments produce results faster and benefit society more. “We have to use the experiences of other countries,” he said. “Either there is a problem that has been solved by others, in which case we must follow the same path or at least adapt the path to our culture and capabilities; or there is a problem which has not been solved by others, in which case we must find a solution for it...The complexity of growing human society requires that we must find new and innovative solutions for our problems.” 

The judge has also implemented other alternative punishments. If capable, the convict can submit artwork as part of their service to society, working on posters depicting nature, painting murals in prison or creating banners featuring socially and religiously redeeming values. Displayed in the prisons, these efforts make the prison environment more humane.

Hadi Hashemian, the provincial head of the Justice Bureau of Golestan province, where Gonbad Kavous is located, praised Naghizadeh’s unorthodox approach. He quoted the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, saying that the reduction of prison population must be part of Iran’s agenda. He also said that judges like Naghizadeh must be encouraged to use alternate punishments for minor crimes.

But, he said, to prevent people from getting ideas, Hashemian added that inmates serving prison sentences for security crimes would not be eligible for alternative forms of punishment. Hashemian was undoubtedly sending a message to human rights activists, journalists and dissidents: the Iranian judiciary as a whole will not follow in the footsteps of Naghizadeh.