Examination of Family Rights Resulting from the Broadcast of the Accused's Image on Television during the Preliminary Investigation of the Crime

Broadcast of the image of the accused in the preliminary investigation stage is prohibited, except for the cases authorized in Article 96 of the Criminal Procedure Code. For this reason, the national media when broadcasting news reports related to the crime blurs the face of the accused. This raises the following question: Does the release of these images violate family rights? To get the answer, in the first step, we examined the rate of identification of individuals in the checkered images broadcast on television with an experimental method. Then, using the Cochran's formula, in the statistical population of Tehran, we determined a sample size of 103 people with an error coefficient of 0.1%. Afterwards, by sampling multi-stage clusters, we selected individuals for the experiment, and by photographing and rasterizing their images, the degree of their identification in groups of families, relatives, friends and neighbors was tested. The obtained data and information were analyzed using SPSS software and Pearson correlation coefficient test, and the identification of individuals in the checkered images broadcast on television was confirmed in the target groups. In the second step, with the rules and principles of Lāḍarar (harmlessness), Wizr (personal punishment), protection of honor and privacy of persons, and also by using legal Article 14, 40, 97 and 96, the right of families to claim material and moral damages was proved. In addition, the criminal prosecution of the publishers of these images was demonstrated for revealing business secrets.