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Non-Muslims, women, political dissidents, and homosexuals have been favored targets of human rights abuse by the Iranian regime. The government has denied and abused the civil, political, and sexual rights of these groups.

Although the Iranian Constitution recognizes Christians and Jews as People of the Book and grants them the right to practice their religion in Iran, these rights are limited and unenforced. Non-Muslims are a highly persecuted second class. Conversion from Islam to another religion is prohibited and punishable by death.

Members of the Baha'i faith, Iran's largest religious minority, are considered heretics because their religion—created after the advent of Islam—does not recognize Mohammed as the final prophet. Many within Iran hold that Baha’is must choose between repentance and death. They have been subject to arrest, brutality and murder.

Women have been suffering tremendously too, having had many of their rights received under the Shah stripped away to "restore" the role of women within Islam. Women are completely beholden to the desires of their husbands, who can marry at will, and who have full custody of their children. They have virtually no rights. Women accused of adultery are quickly stoned to death with little burden of proof on their accusers.

Political dissidents and activists are tyrannized and imprisoned. Luckier ones have fled the country. The death of Neda Soltan, a student who was protesting the 2009 elections, has become a symbol of the state's repression and bloody reprisal against dissenters.

Homosexuality is illegal and carries the death penalty, which can be used against suspected teenage boys as young as fifteen years old. Female homosexuals are punished with 100 lashes and repeated acts yields the death sentence. The laws apply to non-Muslims homosexuals as well.

Repression is more of a reality of Iranian life than not and even traditional Shiites have been alienated by the radicalized regime. Many of the most popular religious leaders within Iran believe that the current regime is perverting their religion. Such mullahs believe in the traditional Shiite view of separation between religious affairs and affairs of state, they have been thrown into jail or put under house arrest. Many within the top echelons of the Revolutionary Guard are members of a minority sect within Shiite Islam known as Hojjatieh whose members believe that clerics have a religious duty to dominate all states affairs even before the arrival of Mahdi, the messianic savior. This provides them with a religious pretext for unlimited power and control over all aspects of Iranian society.

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