Iran: Architects of crimes against humanity to suppress protests must face international justice to deter further massacres
- New report finds Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their bloody suppression of the 2022 Woman Life Freedom uprising
- In-depth investigation exposes chain of command responsible for implementing state policy of lethal force to crush protests and identifies 87 officials who should be investigated for crimes against humanity
- Iranian authorities disproportionately targeted Kurdish and Baluchi communities with lethal repression and subjected them to the crime against humanity of persecution
- UN General Assembly should create an international criminal justice mechanism to tackle impunity for repeated mass protest killings culminating in January 2026 protest massacres
- Report released amid armed hostilities since unlawful US and Israeli attacks, underscoring the need for enduring ceasefire and accountability for violations of the UN Charter and international humanitarian law
In a landmark new report marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the Woman Life Freedom uprising, Amnesty International warns that those responsible for crimes against humanity committed to brutally crush nationwide protests in 2022 continue to control Iran’s deadly state machinery of repression today.
The report, Architects of Atrocities: State Machinery Orchestrating Crimes Against Humanity in Iran’s 2022 Woman Life Freedom Uprising – more than 1,000 pages long – details how Iranian authorities committed the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, enforced disappearance, imprisonment, rape and persecution on political, gender, ethnic and religious grounds in order to crush the uprising. It also documents deadly protest repression operations and command structures, identifying 87 officials who should be criminally investigated for crimes against humanity.