Policy-making on hate crimes in Iran; The intersection of collective values and individual beliefs

In the Iranian penal system, hate crimes reflect, above all, ideological attitudes and prevailing collective values; While the status of these crimes is originally based on the protection of individual or minority beliefs in order to be somehow protected against the power of the collective or the power of the majority. Policy-making on hate crimes in Iran has taken two different paths: first, according to the Law on the Propagation of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1977, it has a universal approach to the category of protected values, and second, the amendments to the penal code of the Islamic Penal Code. It has a local and national approach to the desired values. Using library resources and descriptive and analytical methods, this article tries to explain the policy against hate crime based on an interdisciplinary approach in criminal law and political sociology, and by examining the course and method of policy-making. In this regard, it is concluded that hate crimes, more than any other type of crime, have the capacity to be influenced by the distance between the collective beliefs and values ​​of the majority and individual beliefs and the wishes of the minority, if supported by political power. From the collective belief, policy-making on these crimes will generally deviate from its right path.