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From the Imperial Pahlavi dynasty , through the Islamic Revolution , to the era of the Islamic Republic of Iran , government treatment of Iranian citizens' rights had been criticized by Iranians, by international human rights activists, by writers, by NGOs and the United States. While the monarchy under the rule of the shahs was widely attacked by most Western watchdog organizations for having an abysmal human rights record, the government of the Islamic Republic which succeeded it is considered still worse by many.
The Pahlavi dynasty—Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi—has sometimes been described as a "royal dictatorship", or "one man rule", and employed secret police, torture, and executions to stifle political dissent. During Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign, estimates of the number of political prisoners executed vary from less than 100 to 300.
Under the Islamic Republic, the prison system was centralized and drastically expanded, in one early period more than 7900 people were executed. The Islamic Republic has been criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, but not international human rights norms ; and for "extrajudicial" actions that follow neither, such as firebombings of newspaper offices, and beatings, torture, rape, and killing without trial of political prisoners and dissidents/civilians.