Iran is home to the earliest known charter of human rights^[1] — the Achaemenid dynasty established unprecedented principles of human rights in the 6th century BC, under the reign of Cyrus the Great. After his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, the King issued the Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879 and recognised by many today as the first document defining a person's human rights. The cylinder declared that citizens of the Persian Empire would be allowed to practice their religious beliefs freely and abolished slavery. This means that all the palaces of the Kings of Persia were built by paid workers, in an era where slaves typically did such work. These two reforms were reflected in the biblical books of Chronicles and Ezra, which state that Cyrus released the followers of Judaism from slavery and allowed them to migrate back to their land. Following Persia's defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great, the concept of human rights was abandoned.

In 1906, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution resulted in a constitutional monarchy. For the first time in the more than 2000 years since the reign of Cyrus the Great, Iran was relying on a code of law to govern the interactions of its citizens and define their minimum freedoms.

With the arrival of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, the constitution was for all practical purposes ignored. Political prisoners were imprisoned, political opponents and erstwhile allies were executed. Torture of political prisoners was common ^[2]

His son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi continued in his father's footsteps, and his SAVAK were notorious for their imaginative torture methods. ^[3]

During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iranians had all social freedom. Women had equal rights & could even become judges & ministers. Shirin Ebadi was one of the female judges. She was forced to give up her profession after 1979 revolution[1]. Women are not even permitted t go to Sports Stadiums since 1979 Islamic Revolution[2]. Dr Farrokhroo Parsa (a physician) was the first female Education minister of Iran who was executed by firing squad by Islamic Regime on charges of "spreading vice on Earth and fighting God"[3]. Homosexuality was also tolerated during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Since 1979, homosexuality is a crime punishable by death[4]. However political opponents were jailed or in some cases executed. Theocratic Islamic Regime not only executes but also stones, amputates the limbs and commits other medieval & inhumane punishments which are not even a crime such as adultery[5].

The Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi Dynasty is thought by some to have significantly worsened human rights conditions in Iran. According to political historian Ervand Abrahamian, "whereas less than 100 political prisoners had been executed between 1971 and 1979, more than 7900 were executed between 1981 and 1985. ... the prison system was centralized and drastically expanded ... Prison life was drastically worse under the Islamic Republic than under the Pahlavis. One who survived both writes that four months under [warden] Ladjevardi took the toll of four years under SAVAK. ^[4] In the prison literature of the Pahlavi era, the recurring words had been "boredom" and "monotony." In that of the Islamic Republic, they were "fear," "death," "terror," "horror," and most frequent of all "nightmare" (kabos)." ^[5]

Following the rise of the reform movement within Iran and the election of moderate Iranian president Mohammad Khatami in 1997, numerous moves were made to modify the Iranian civil and penal codes in order to improve the human rights situation. The predominantly reformist parliament drafted several bills allowing increased freedom of speech, gender equality, and the banning of torture. These were all dismissed or significantly watered down by the Guardian Council and leading conservative figures in the Iranian government at the time.

According to The Economist magazine,

The Tehran spring of ten years ago has now given way to a bleak political winter. The new government continues to close down newspapers, silence dissenting voices and ban or censor books and websites. The peaceful demonstrations and protests of the Khatami era are no longer tolerated: in January [2007] security forces attacked striking bus drivers in Tehran and arrested hundreds of them. In March police beat hundreds of men and women who had assembled to commemorate International Women's Day.^[6]

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