دادگاه انقلاب

What it is

دادگاه انقلاب (dâdgâh-e enqelâb), the Revolutionary Court, is the parallel judicial system the Islamic Republic built alongside the regular courts in early 1979. Khomeini established it by decree in February 1979 as an “emergency” tribunal to try officials of the Pahlavi monarchy. The first round of executions took place on a school rooftop in Tehran days later. The court was supposed to wind down once the emergency ended. The emergency, on the regime’s reading, has not ended.

Today there is a Revolutionary Court branch in every province. Tehran’s branches sit inside the same compound as Evin. Judges are appointed directly by the head of the judiciary, who is appointed by the Supreme Leader. There are no juries. Defense lawyers are picked from a state-approved list of 20 attorneys. The trial is closed to the public.

The mechanics

The Revolutionary Court has jurisdiction over a specific menu of offenses: “moharebe” (waging war against God), “efsad fel-arz” (corruption on earth), national security charges, narcotics over a threshold weight, anti-state propaganda, and “insult” against the Supreme Leader or the founder of the Republic. Since 1979, the court has handed down more death sentences than any other Iranian judicial body. Hearings are typically short. The accused often meets the judge for the first time at sentencing.

The post-Mahsa execution wave routed entirely through this court. Mohsen Shekari, hanged 8 December 2022, was tried by Tehran’s Branch 26 on a moharebe charge for allegedly blocking a street and cutting a Basiji with a knife. Majidreza Rahnavard was hanged in public from a crane in Mashhad on 12 December 2022 after a moharebe conviction in the Mashhad Revolutionary Court. The rapper Toomaj Sâlehi was sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court on 23 April 2024 (overturned by the Supreme Court 22 June 2024). The pattern is the design.

Designations and the record

The Revolutionary Court has not been formally sanctioned as an institution, but several of its judges have been. Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Tehran’s Branch 15, nicknamed “the Hanging Judge” by Iranian media, was sanctioned by the EU in 2011, by the US Treasury in 2019, and by Canada and the UK. Judge Mohammad Moghiseh of Branch 28 was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2019 for sentencing scores of dual nationals, journalists, and Bahá’ís.

Amnesty International’s 2020 report “Trampling Humanity” documented systematic torture-extracted confessions, denial of legal counsel, and convictions on charges manufactured during interrogation. Iran’s domestic legal community has never been allowed to reform the court.

In our voice

A court whose first hearing took place on a rooftop and whose forty-sixth year of “emergency” is still ongoing is not a court. It is a sentencing room with a state seal on the door. The regime keeps it because it produces verdicts the regular judiciary, with all its own deficits, cannot reliably produce. When you hear “Revolutionary Court,” translate it as “the Supreme Leader’s office, by other means.”

Why it’s in this glossary

Iranian families know what it means to receive a summons from دادگاه انقلاب. Diaspora learners, watching protest footage and reading detainee lists, will hear the phrase constantly. Glossing it as “Revolutionary Court” is technically correct and operationally misleading. We document the mechanics so the words “Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court” carry the weight they actually carry.

How to use it

• دادگاه انقلابی محکومش کرد (dâdgâh-e enqelâbi mahkumesh kard) “the Revolutionary Court convicted him”
• تو دادگاه انقلاب محاکمه شد (tu dâdgâh-e enqelâb mohâkeme shod) “he was tried in the Revolutionary Court”
• قاضی صلواتی حکم داد (qâzi Salavâti hokm dâd) “Judge Salavati issued the sentence”

References

• Amnesty International, “Trampling Humanity,” 2020
• Human Rights Watch, World Report 2024 (Iran)
• US Treasury sanctions on Iranian judges, 2019
• HRF, Toomaj Sâlehi death sentence overturned, 22 June 2024
• Dehkhoda, دادگاه