Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 16 January 2025: IHRNGO has joined 45 Iranian and international organisations in calling on UN Human Rights Council member states to urgently convene a special session on Iran, in response to a major escalation in lethal repression of protests and an ongoing internet blackout since 8 January aimed at concealing abuses. The organisations warn of mass unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances, and serious risks of torture and executions, and urge the Council to act decisively by strengthening and resourcing the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission and the Special Rapporteur, launching an urgent inquiry, preserving evidence, and pressing for accountability and respect for Iranians’ rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.
FULL TEXT:
To: Member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council
Your Excellencies,
We, the undersigned civil society organizations, urge the UN Human Rights Council to urgently convene a special session to address an unprecedented escalation in mass unlawful killings of protesters, amidst an ongoing internet shutdown imposed since 8 January to conceal grave human rights violations and crimes under international law by Iranian authorities.
Since 28 December 2025, an escalating campaign of lethal repression aimed at crushing a mostly peaceful uprising has led to the massacres of protesters during protest dispersals, with the death toll rising to thousands, including by official admission. Establishing the real death toll is not possible at the time of writing, given the unprecedented scale of mass killings since 8 January and amidst an ongoing internet blackout, which has severely impeded communication with the outside world and the ability of human rights organizations to gather and corroborate information.
Verified videos and credible information received by our organizations from individuals in Iran, including journalists, medical workers, protesters, eyewitnesses and victims’ relatives, reveal widespread patterns of security forces positioned on the streets and rooftops, repeatedly firing rifles and shotguns loaded with metal pellets, targeting unarmed protesters frequently in their heads and torsos. According to eyewitness accounts and verified audiovisual evidence, medical facilities are overwhelmed with the injured while distraught families have been searching for their missing loved ones among body bags near overflowing morgues and witnessed bodies piled up in pick-up trucks, freight containers or warehouses.
The evidence gathered indicates a coordinated nationwide escalation in the security forces’ unlawful use of force, firearms and other prohibited weapons against mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders since the evening of 8 January when protests grew in size nationwide. Human rights monitors previously documented that even before the escalating repression on 8 January, security forces unlawfully used rifles, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannon, tear gas, as well as physical beatings, killing dozens. Raids on hospitals, involving the use of tear gas, shotguns and beatings of patients, their relatives and medical workers and arrests of injured protesters in medical facilities have also been documented.
As part of their violent crackdown, security forces have also arbitrarily arrested thousands of protesters, including children, and subjected many to enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention. Given well-documented patterns during previous protests, we are gravely concerned that detainees are at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment as well as arbitrary executions.
The undersigned civil society organizations are gravely concerned that authorities will once again resort to swift trials that bear no resemblance to judicial proceedings and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent. State authorities have labelled demonstrators as “rioters” and “terrorists”, calling for a harsh response by the security forces. The Head of the Judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje’i, has ordered provincial prosecutors to show “no leniency” to protesters and expedite their trials. Officials have also called for protesters to face capital offences, including “enmity against God” (moharabeh), raising fears that those arbitrarily detained may face the death penalty.
In a statement from 13 January, High Commissioner Volker Türk said he was “horrified by the mounting violence directed by security forces at protesters across Iran”, adding “this cycle of horrific violence cannot continue… The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable”.
Tragically for the people of Iran, the latest wave of massacres is the culmination of a long-standing pattern of lethal crackdowns on nationwide protests, including during the November 2019 protests and the Woman Life Freedom uprising of September-December 2022. In-depth investigations of the latter led the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran to conclude that Iranian authorities committed the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts.
We urge UN member states to acknowledge that the repeated commission of grave human rights violations and crimes under international law, including during successive waves of protests in Iran, has been made possible by the entrenched and systemic impunity for those responsible for these crimes. The lack of criminal accountability has emboldened Iranian officials to persist in their criminal conduct and deliberately turn to mass killings of protesters demanding human rights and dignity.
In this context, the Council must now act decisively by convening a special session and adopting a strong resolution that signals unequivocally to Iranian authorities that the spiral of bloodshed and impunity must end. Through the special session, the HRC should ensure that the truth about these grave human rights violations and crimes under international law is established and evidence preserved, requesting the Fact-Finding Mission to carry out an urgent inquiry and ensuring it has the resources to carry out its investigations, and request that they submit recommendations on concrete avenues to pursuing comprehensive justice and ending the impunity that is driving the state policy of lethal repression.
The Council must also affirm the rights of people in Iran to freedoms of opinion, expression, association and peaceful assembly as well as their right to freely and equally participate in the political and public life of their country.
To this end, we call on the Council to:
We thank you for your attention to these pressing issues and stand ready to provide your delegation with further information as required.
Sincerely,