Best & Worst of CPAC's Free Speech Ratings: Iran

In its inaugural assessment, the CPAC Free Speech Ratings assigned Iran a score of zero percent, reflecting the total suppression of free speech by the Ayatollah regime. This rating identifies a rigid theocratic system in which dissent is treated as a challenge to divine authority and met with vicious retribution. By criminalizing independent thought, the Iranian government has created an environment of state-mandated terror that ranks among the most severe in the world.

The roots of this repression date back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which replaced the former monarchy with a radical theocracy, now led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since its inception, the regime has maintained power through brutality and state-sponsored terrorism, funding extremist groups around the globe to project its influence. Calls for reform have been met with the mass killing of protesters—a violent pattern that continues to fuel the current climate of social and economic unrest. With the widespread protests currently taking place across Iran, the regime has mercilessly killed an estimated 2000 protesters who are demanding their freedom. Ultimately, the ongoing demonstrations in Iran and abroad highlight the resilience of the Iranian people in the face of this systemic state terror.

The execution of Yousef Mehrad and Safrolla Fazeli Zare serves as a stark example of this deadly intolerance. In May 2023, the two men were hanged for “blasphemy” after being targeted for their involvement in a Telegram channel titled "Critique of Superstition and Religion", where they criticized Islam. Prosecutors used a video of a burning Quran found on Mehrad’s phone to secure a conviction, claiming the men had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Following their 2021 conviction, both men were subjected to extreme isolation and denied all contact with their families for eight months before their execution. These hangings occurred in the wake of widespread protests following the death of a young woman in police custody after she was arrested for refusing to wear a hijab.

Iran’s zero percent rating is the direct result of a system that prioritizes the survival of a radical ideology over the lives of its citizens and fundamental human rights. When a regime treats a simple social media post as a capital offense and responds to protests with mass executions, it reveals a desperate reliance on terror to maintain its slipping grip on power.

Read the full brief here.

Not every case of imprisonment for speech gets widespread media attention. If you are aware of a case in which a person was imprisoned for speech and received a harsher sentence than the political prisoner whom we feature in the scorecard, please send the details of the case to slaird@conservative.org. To meet our methodological criteria, the person must be 1) imprisoned or sentenced to prison for speech that would have been protected under the US first amendment, 2) a citizen of the country in which they are imprisoned, 3) received a sentence of imprisonment for at least one month OR were imprisoned without being sentenced for at least 3 months 4) not imprisoned for any actual crime during the same period for which they were sentenced for a speech crime.

CPAC vehemently opposes the views of many of the political prisoners featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings. Political prisoners are featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings for the purpose of revealing the state of legal Freedom of Speech protection in their countries. Political prisoners are selected based on the objective facts of their cases; each selected prisoner is the person who received the harshest sentence in that country for speech that would have been protected by the US First Amendment. CPAC stands for the right to Freedom of Speech for everyone, even people whose views we vehemently oppose.