Rag-e Harf 15: Why and How Is a Confession Against Oneself Invalid?

I confess!

Why and How Is a Confession Against Oneself Invalid?

This is the fifteenth installment of the regular column "Rag-e Harf" and the final issue of its first series. This column will go on hiatus for a few months and—God willing—will return again with a new series. My endeavor in this column was, is, and will be to bring everyday concepts and judgments into discussion and to subject them to critique and assessment.

I Confess, Therefore I Am Not

This time, I want to delve into the vein of "confession against oneself" and demonstrate just how invalid a confession against oneself is, unless proven otherwise in certain cases. This type of confession has historical roots and was particularly prevalent among important figures such as Saint Augustine in the Middle Ages and Jean-Jacques Rousseau during the Enlightenment. Confession in this sense is an important literary genre. Another form of confession against oneself was common during the era of the Church Inquisition. In that period, the heretic was tortured to confess against himself; if he did not confess, he would die under torture, and if he did confess, he was, in some cases, executed. The most famous example of confession against oneself is the case of Galileo; although he was not tortured, he ultimately confessed under pressure and wrote in his recantation: "In the seventieth year of my life, I kneel before you, and while I have the Holy Scriptures before my eyes and touch them with my hands, I repent and deny the vain claim of the Earth's motion, and I deem it detestable and condemned." Galileo, of course, was not sentenced to death after his confession (partly because he had powerful defenders within the Church's Inquisition apparatus). The Church's Inquisition apparatus in countries like Portugal and Italy was prevalent even up to about one hundred and fifty years ago (the mid-nineteenth century). In the modern era, however, confession against oneself has a more political than religious aspect, and its prevalence owes much to dictatorial governance systems and closed (or semi-closed) regimes.

I Confess, Let Me Execute by Firing Squad

But why is a confession against oneself fundamentally invalid unless proven otherwise? By the fundamental invalidity of a confession against oneself, I do not mean the literary genre of confession (in, for example, Augustine and Rousseau), but rather its religious and political forms. The reason for this invalidity is that a confession against oneself, in an atmosphere that reeks of inquisition and political and social closure, is so suspicious and likely coerced and imposed that the principle is its invalidity unless the contrary is proven. In a famous historical example, a prominent politician preemptively and, in a somewhat ironic manner, declares his own potential future confession against himself invalid in advance: "In two days, the term of the first Parliament [...] of which this humble servant was a member and enjoyed the privileges of this membership, including parliamentary immunity, will come to an end. From the day after tomorrow, I, like the rest of my constituents, will be liable to prosecution, arrest, and punishment. For this reason, and taking advantage of the opportunity the Speaker of Parliament has given me, I wish to inform you that if in the coming days you witness that I have been arrested and then, with propaganda and fanfare, it is announced that I will appear on television for some explanations and to clarify the facts, and if you see that person saying things different from the words of yesterday and today and repeating matters like a parrot, know and be aware that that individual [is not me]."

Among the historical examples of show trials and forced confessions against oneself were the trials that Stalin, the leader of the Communist Party and head of the Soviet Union, staged between 1936 and 1938, in which he tried a large number of prominent figures of the Communist Party who were his critics and rivals. The trials were held without defense lawyers and in secret, and there was no evidence against them other than the confessions and admissions of the accused. Furthermore, the court's sentence (which was execution or lifelong exile with hard labor to the extremely cold region of Siberia—that is, gradual execution) was swiftly carried out with no possibility of appeal. The confessions of the accused were full of contradictions and entirely coerced and fabricated. In one instance, one of the accused confessed to assassinating an individual, even though the accused had been imprisoned a year before that individual's assassination. Compelling a person to confess against himself was enforced with such vigor that in some cases, the accused would request the court not to grant them any leniency and to be sure to execute them, but to allow them, before the execution, to shoot their treacherous relatives and colleagues.

A confession against oneself is very likely to be coerced and imposed, and therefore lacks validity, except in rare cases where it is clear that it was made in a free environment and by the individual's own genuine will and choice.

Yaser Mirdamadi / Rag-e Harf 15