The Iranian state TV (IRIB) has broadcast over 860 cases of coerced confessions and slanderous content against citizens in the past 10 years, according to a joint report by Justice for Iran organization and International Federation of Human Rights in Paris.

The report indicates that from 2009 to 2019, the IRIB has broadcast over 355 cases of coerced confessions of political prisoners.

Many political prisoners in the past have recounted their experiences in prison, getting pressured and even tortured to give a video confession for TV. Some have even identified famous TV reporters as their interrogators or present at the interrogation room.

The report also counts over 505 cases of slander and defamation by the state-TV against individuals.

A Justice for Iran official, Mohammad Nayyeri, stated: “While the Iranian state-TV regularly broadcasts programs that are results of torture and terror, the IRIB reporters travel in Europe freely and without any consequences.”

Nayyeri, co-director of Justice for Iran, says the number of those filmed likely is even higher as some say their coerced confessions have yet to air, while others may not have been immediately accessible to researchers.

Justice for Iran has asked the European Union to suspend the activities of IRIB officials and reporters and deny them entrance to Europe.

Since the beginning, the Islamic Republic has used coerced and fake confession on TV against its opposition and dissidents.

The report states: “IRIB operates as a media hub that links a vast network of security, intelligence, military, and judicial organizations. IRIB is not simply a media organization and by no means an independent one, but rather an organ of state suppression that uses the tools of mass communication.”