Wot I'm watching: PANORAMA: Living with the Ayatollahs

Post-revolutionary Iran continues to resemble the Reign of Terror in 18th-century France, according to Jane Corbin's vivid documentary on BBCTV last night.

Whilst congratulating the people of Egypt and Libya on their efforts to unshackle themselves from the rule of tyrants, Ayatollah Khamenei uses his Revolutionary Guards to brutally suppress dissidence at home.

The programme revisited the case of Sakineh, the woman condemned to death by stoning for the murder of a husband who prostituted and brutalized her. (The lover who carried out the murder, one of her customers, was allowed to go free on the payment of Blood Money.) Other women, some only protesting against the regime, have been raped and tortured in prison.

A gay man, who had fled with many other dissidents to Turkey, said that the penalty for homosexuality under Sharia Law is supposed to be ritual dismemberment. The ayatollahs take pride in the "humanity" of their justice: they only hang homosexuals. This man too had been raped in prison before his escape. Homosexuality is criminal, but it's okay for prison guards to rape their prisoners: such is justice in the "Holy" Islamic Republic.

We need to remind ourselves that out of Robespierre's Reign of Terror came - eventually - the civilised France we know today (a France that has just banned the wearing of the burka!). Iran, 30 years after Khomeini usurped the Shah's 'Peacock Throne', is still going through its bloodbath phase. The next phase of the revolution is sorely needed. The Iranians do not yet know freedom anmd tolerance.