was charged with three crimes against the Islamic Republic of Iran: calling into question
the morals and values upon which the Islamic Republic was founded, undermining the
dignity of women in Iran, and attacking the cultural independence of Iran by promoting
American values. The class was divided into the prosecution, responsible for prosecuting
the book and defending the interests of the Islamic Republic; the defense (intellectuals
and other reformers) who would respond to the charges and defend the book; and a panel
of judges/jury members, who would formally charge the book, be empowered to ask
questions of each party to the case, and eventually render a verdict and decide the
I noted that the simulation was not going to run in the manner of a Western
court; nor would it replicate an actual trial in an Iranian revolutionary court. Instead, I
explained that I was drawing on the more fluid sense of a ‘court’ deployed in Nafisi’s
classroom, in which the roles of judges/jury, prosecution and defense would be used to
shape debate, and in the case of our classroom, inspire creative thinking about what
particular sets of actors would do in the context of a book being charged with crimes
against the Islamic Republic.
After the presentation of charges by the judges, both prosecution and defense
would make opening statements, which would serve as the basis for an initial set of
questions to each party by the judges/jury (see the Appendix for details of the simulation
instructions and schedule). Much of the rest of the trial would involve ‘cross-
examination’ by one party of the other, under the guidance of the Chief Justice. After a
fixed time period, the prosecution and defense would offer closing statements and class
would take a short recess while the judges/jury convened. We would reconvene to hear
3
Combining the judge/jury roles had a practical motivation, given that the work required for judges and
jury would be less than for either the prosecution and defense. However, the lack of distinction between the
two roles also reflects the frequently surreal quality of revolutionary courts or other means of administering
justice in totalitarian states, in which the independence of the judiciary is questionable and in which juries,
if they exist, may serve only for show.
9
Convention