Rethinking the nature and the conditions for the fulfillment of the crime of "spreading falsehoods"

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Political Science And the history of Yazd University

2 Department of Law, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Meybod University

Abstract

The legal document of the crime of "publishing falsehoods" has always been associated with ambiguities and challenges from the very beginning of its entry into the list of crimes until its latest changes. The reason for the different approach of the legislator towards this offense compared to the defamation offense, the reason for making its realization conditional on the existence of a specific intention to "harm others or disturb the public mind or official authorities" and the relevance of having or not having "writing" in its realization, are three-fold. It is that this research has addressed them by using library sources and in a descriptive and analytical method and has made suggestions for the amendment of the legal article under discussion. The research came to the conclusion that it is appropriate for the legislator to separate the criminal title of "publishing lies with the intention of disturbing the public mind" from the crime of "false attribution to another" and place it among the crimes against public safety and comfort in future revisions. On the other hand, instead of focusing on the motive of the offender, in the realization of the offense of "false attribution to another", focus on the nature of the behavior and finally, exclude the limitation of the realization of both offenses of Article 698 of Tazirah by "written means".

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