As if rigged elections were not enough, the new Iranian government has compounded its breach of the law by the systematic abuse of Iranians taken prisoner after the June 12 presidential election. Nobody in Iran is immune to the government’s brutality. Only a strict following of the law, the punishment of those guilty and the release of those whose only crime was to protest the recent election results will bring the government the international respect it so desperately seeks.

The accounts of prisoners’ abuse by their relatives and on opposition websites have provoked outrage not only among Mr. Mousavi (the opposition candidate) supporters but even among some prominent conservative clerics, some of whom have relatives who have been brutally tortured by the Iranian police.

Recently, the government released 140 prisoners, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged the judiciary to show “Islamic mercy” to the detainees, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, personally intervened and ordered the closing of a notorious detention center. The government actions can only be described as “cosmetic” gestures aimed more to appease the growing opposition to its tactics than to restore a respect for the law since abuse continues in an unending dragnet of brutality.

The critical point that galvanized and widened the opposition was the case of Mohsen Ruholamini, son of an adviser to the conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai. Mr Ruholamini died in prison after being severely beaten by the Iranian police. His death comes shortly after the death of Neda Agha-Soltan , whose death during a demonstration against the government sparked protests around the globe and made of her an iconic figure in Iran.

Mr. Mousavvi reacted with predictable anger at these abuses. “They cannot turn this nation into a prison of 70 million people,” he said. Senior clerics have joined in the protests, indicating that if the government continues to tolerate such abuses, the future of Iran’s theocracy was in danger.

Torture to prisoners is not new to Iran’s government. In 2007 alone, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, sent 24 joint communications and one urgent appeal describing human rights abuses. The Iranian authorities denied any allegations of torture and responded that fair trials had been conducted in all cases.

Despite the government denials, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has verified several reports of systematic torture and abuse of opponents after the recent presidential elections. There are also allegations of the rape of prisoners, which are particular serious abuses in a traditional society such as Iran, aimed at humiliating and dehumanizing prisoners. According to this organization, the widespread, planned and systematic nature of these crimes since the June 12 elections could be raising to the level of crimes against humanity under international law.

On August 9, 2009, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, Iran’s police chief, acknowledged that protesters were beaten by their jailers at Kahrizak detention center, but blamed an outbreak of disease for their deaths. The police chief’s explanation was flatly denied by several conservative clerics. In addition, Iran’s Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi, called that those responsible for mistreating prisoners be tried and punished.

There have been reports of family members finding “hundreds of corpses” in a Tehran morgue. The police denied them to retrieve the bodies of their relatives unless they certified that the deaths were due to natural causes.

Iranian lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi urged Iran’s government to release those citizens accused of involvement in the country’s post-election unrest, and so did other Nobel laureates such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire and Jody Williams.

If the Iranian government continues to ignore these calls to justice and freedom for those unjustly detained, it will justify the role of “pariah” government among civilized nations that they so strenuously reject.

Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD, a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award, is the foreign correspondent for the Middle East Times International (Australia).