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Iranian security forces committed systematic crimes against humanity during their violent suppression of nationwide demonstrations in 2022, according to an extensive new report published by Amnesty International. The London-based human rights watchdog emphasized that the state’s repressive tactics not only devastated the 2022 uprising but also established a deadly blueprint for an even larger and more brutal crackdown on public unrest earlier this year.
Marking four years since the start of the historic demonstrations, Amnesty International released a comprehensive 1,000-page dossier detailing the scope of state-sponsored violence. The organization concluded that the Iranian authorities' actions amounted to a coordinated campaign of crimes against humanity, which encompassed widespread murder, systematic torture, rape, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances carried out against peaceful demonstrators and bystanders alike.
The findings come alongside urgent warnings regarding the Iranian government's continued use of lethal force to quell dissent. Human rights researchers highlighted that the brutal measures deployed against cost-of-living demonstrations that erupted early this year—reaching a peak on the nights of January 8 and 9—exhibited the identical hallmarks of the 2022 crackdown, while being executed on a significantly more staggering and lethal scale.
Agnes Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, stated that the comprehensive body of evidence gathered and evaluated in the investigation leaves no ambiguity regarding the legal classification of the state's actions. She stressed that the apparatus of the Islamic republic acted deliberately and systematically to crush the popular movement through methods that violate the most fundamental tenets of international law.
In response to the gravity of these findings, Amnesty International directed a formal appeal to the United Nations General Assembly. The organization urged member states to take decisive multilateral action by establishing an independent international criminal justice mechanism designed specifically to investigate, build cases against, and prosecute the individuals most heavily implicated in ordering and carrying out the atrocities.
Central to the report’s accountability effort is the identification of 87 national and regional officials who Amnesty determined formed the operational chain of command behind the lethal response. The human rights group asserted that these high-level figures bear individual criminal responsibility for directing or overseeing the abuses and should ultimately be made to answer before international tribunals.
The dossier notes that the political and military landscape in Tehran has shifted significantly since the 2022 uprising, with six of the 87 identified officials having since been killed in US-Israeli air strikes during the recent war. Among those deceased leaders named in the report as central to the 2022 suppression is the former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, along with several high-ranking commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
However, many other key architects of the violent suppression remain alive and in positions of considerable power within the Iranian establishment. Among them is Ahmad Vahidi, who directed the internal security apparatus as the interior minister during the peak of the 2022 crackdown and has subsequently risen to serve as the chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The roots of the 2022 movement trace back to September of that year, when nationwide unrest broke out following the custody death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman detained by the morality police for an alleged violation of the country's mandatory dress codes. Her death catalyzed months of defiant rallies under the banner of the "Woman. Life. Freedom." movement, presenting one of the most formidable challenges to the theocratic government in decades.
According to the specific casualties documented in the report, Amnesty verified that at least 377 protesters and bystanders were killed between September and December 2022 alone. This verified death toll includes 56 children, illustrating the indiscriminate nature of the state's response. The organization confirmed that security personnel directly caused the deaths of at least 326 of these victims, often by firing metal pellets and live ammunition directly at crowds from close range.
Beyond the documented fatalities, thousands of citizens across Iran were subjected to arbitrary arrests, held in prolonged incommunicado detention, or forcibly disappeared. Amnesty documented horrific abuses inside detention centers, where detainees, including women and young demonstrators, were subjected to torture, severe physical beatings, and various forms of sexual violence intended to break the spirit of the protest movement.
To illustrate the human toll of the state violence, the report highlighted individual victims, including Minoo Majidi, a 62-year-old woman who was shot and killed with metal pellets while participating in a demonstration in the western city of Kermanshah in September 2022. Her daughter, Mahsa Piraei, who currently resides outside Iran, recounted that her mother took to the streets simply to demand fundamental change and exercise her right to call for freedom.
Piraei emphasized that while the international community often viewed the 2022 demonstrations strictly through the lens of women's rights and gender equality, the uprising represented a much broader societal struggle for human dignity and the fundamental right to life. She maintained that preserving the memory of the victims and demanding accountability is essential not only for past victims but to protect those currently detained under the regime.
The report links the entrenched culture of impunity surrounding the 2022 violations directly to the subsequent massacres carried out against demonstrators earlier this year. Amnesty warned that dozens of individuals detained during the January protests remain in extreme peril within the Iranian prison system, facing imminent risks of execution following summary trials.
Among those facing capital punishment is Ali Zarei, a demonstrator who was blinded in one eye by security forces during the 2022 demonstrations. After temporarily finding safety as a refugee in Germany, Zarei returned to Iran this year, where he was subsequently apprehended by authorities and sentenced to death, prompting urgent calls from activists and victims' families to bring international attention to his case.
Amnesty International concluded that without swift and coordinated global action to establish judicial accountability, the Iranian authorities will continue to deploy unrestrained lethal violence against their own population. The watchdog warned that the failure of the international community to hold perpetrators responsible for the crimes of 2022 has directly enabled the even deadlier wave of repression witnessed across the country today.
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