Behind the koranic curtain: a look at life under the rigid theocracy ruling Iran's Islamic Republic, where nonconformity to Shari'a law is punishable by imprisonment, beating, amputation, and even death.(IRAN)

Last April, the bodies of six young women between the ages of 20 and 30 were found dumped in a remote area outside of Tehran. The victims, all unidentified, had been brutally murdered by killers who, under Islamic law, act with virtual impunity. According to Iran's "Islamic Punishment Act," the killing of an individual may be justified if the murderer believes he is acting on religious conviction, or out of a sense of retribution.

What crime had these women committed? Had they failed to veil properly? Were they wearing makeup? Or had they been discovered alone in the presence of a non-relative male? Any one of these transgressions might have provided the justification for their murder in the eyes of Iran's theocratic leaders.

In Kerman, one of Iran's oldest cities, Hezbollah operatives murdered five young men and women. The murderers were acquitted of all charges by Iran's Supreme Court on the grounds that "the defendants were pious individuals and that their determination that the victims should have been killed was not wrong."

In 2001, 13 women were killed in the northeastern city of Mashad for failing to veil properly. The murderer escaped punishment by claiming that he had acted on religious conviction in order to "cleanse society from filth." In reaction to the antihuman act, an Iranian judiciary spokesman curtly remarked that "no court order was needed to confront mal-veiling."

Such is life in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where 68 million Iranians are now subject to near total social and political domination by the all-powerful Shi'a Muslim clergy that controls the state's central power structures.

As in any totalitarian society, political dissent is looked upon as unpatriotic--or in Iran's case, un-Islamic--since it threatens theocratic stability. A literal interpretation of the Koran informs every aspect of daily life, and virtually any activity can come under scrutiny.

A 2001 report by the Special Representative for Iran of the Commission on Human Rights claimed that Iranian authorities, or their proxies, had killed more than 80 individuals over a 10-year period in an attempt to silence dissent.