Author: Keyvan Rafiee

The Tech – I want to tell you about two universities.

At Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, students returned to campus this week for the first time since January’s massacres. They chanted over the names of the dead. At K. N. Toosi University, students trampled an image of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, an act that carries a prison sentence, possibly death. At the University of Tehran, students issued a statement: “We did not give our lives to compromise, nor to praise a murderous leader.” Security forces attacked them. By Monday, students at more than a dozen universities across Tehran, Mashhad, and Isfahan had joined them. They knew what would happen. They went anyway.

At MIT, where Iranian students are part of our community, the administration has not said a word.

I am Iranian. I have family in Iran. For weeks in January, I could not reach them. I am not the only one. Some Iranian students at MIT still have not been able to confirm that their families are alive. This is not an abstraction for us. This is Tuesday.

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Here is what has happened since December 28.

Nationwide protests erupted across Iran, the largest since the 1979 revolution. On January 8 and 9, under a near-total internet blackout, security forces opened fire on civilians. The Human Rights Activists News Agency has confirmed over 7,000 dead. Leaked internal government reports, cited by Time, The Guardian, and Iran International, place the figure above 30,000. Even Khamenei has acknowledged that “thousands” were killed. The United Nations Human Rights Council has called it the deadliest crackdown since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Amnesty International documented snipers on rooftops firing into crowds. On February 19, a senior regime official publicly confirmed that security forces delivered final shots to wounded protesters, an admission of extrajudicial execution from inside the system itself.

Tens of thousands have been arrested, including children. Many have been executed without due process. Human Rights Watch has documented mass enforced disappearances and coerced confessions broadcast on state television. Families across the country are now holding chehelom, the 40-day mourning tradition, and even these ceremonies are becoming sites of resistance: people dancing at funerals in defiance, chanting from rooftops. This week, universities reopened, and students in Iran are protesting again. These protests are happening at more than a dozen campuses across the country. These protests are happening under the shadow of a possible American military strike. These protests are happening under threat of arrest, expulsion, or worse. They are doing this knowing that their parents could be the ones mournfully dancing at their graves the day after.

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I bring up the students in Iran not to draw a false equivalence. No one at MIT faces the risks those students face. That is exactly the point. We have every freedom to speak, and we have used none of it.

Nearly a million Iranians in diaspora took to the streets on February 14. NYU students held a vigil on the steps of the New York Public Library. Northeastern, blocks from here, held a solidarity rally in January. The Graduate Employees’ Organization at UIUC issued a statement. The European Parliament, the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, governments across the world, all have spoken.

MIT has not.

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Institutions cannot respond to every crisis. I understand that, and this is not a demand that MIT take a foreign policy position. But when members of your own community cannot reach their families for weeks, when students in your hallways are grieving because they do not know if their loved ones are alive, that is not a foreign policy question. That is a question of whether you see the people in your own house. And even for those who have reached their families: the images coming out of Iran, bodies in hospital corridors, mass graves, children shot in the streets, are not things you see and recover from. The dead are not strangers to us. They are our people.

There are students at MIT who have been carrying this for almost two months, largely alone. Some sit next to you in lecture. Some TA your classes. They are doing it without any institutional acknowledgment that what they are going through is real.

Silence, in a case like this, is not neutrality. It is a decision.

—

What I am asking for is small relative to what is happening. A public statement from MIT acknowledging the scale of violence in Iran and its impact on our community. Direct support resources, counseling, academic flexibility, for students navigating weeks of severed family contact. This is not geopolitical commentary. This is what institutions do when their people are hurting.

And to the rest of the MIT community: if you know Iranian students, check in with them. If solidarity events happen on campus, show up. You do not need to understand the full politics of Iran to recognize that your classmate might be suffering.

Students in Iran are risking everything to stand up this week. We are being asked to do so much less.

The post As thousands are killed in Iran, MIT remains silent appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

New Age – Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday dismissed US claims about its missile programme as ‘big lies’, after president Donald Trump said Tehran was developing missiles that can strike the United States.

‘Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest, is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’, ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.

Baqaei did not specify exactly which claims he was responding to, but hours earlier Trump had said Iran was seeking missiles that could reach American soil.

In an interview with Al Jazeera this month, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran lacked the capability to target the US but would attack American bases in the Middle East if Washington launched a strike.

During his State of the Union speech, Trump also reiterated that Iran would never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon, saying Tehran’s leaders were ‘at this moment again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions’.

Iran has repeatedly denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon but insists it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The US president also claimed that Iranian authorities killed 32,000 people during a wave of protests that started in December and peaked on January 8 and 9.

Iranian officials acknowledge more than 3,000 deaths, but say the violence was caused by ‘terrorist acts’ fuelled by the United States and Israel.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has recorded more than 7,000 deaths, while warning the full toll is likely far higher.

Trump’s claims come after Washington and Tehran concluded two rounds of Oman-mediated talks aimed at reaching a deal on the nuclear programme, with the third round set for Thursday.

Washington has repeatedly called for zero uranium enrichment by Iran but has also sought to address its ballistic missile programme and support for militant groups in the region, demands Iran has rejected.

Trump, who has ratcheted up pressure on Iran to reach an agreement, has deployed a significant naval force to the Middle East.

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The Washington Post – The third round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran has begun in Geneva, as much of the world holds its breath to see if the massive military force President Donald Trump has assembled in the Middle East is a threat designed to bring the Iranians to heel or a promise to attack if negotiations don’t immediately produce a deal to his liking.

“I don’t think a final decision has been made yet,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), one of a small group of senior congressional leaders briefed on the president’s plans just hours before Trump delivered the annual State of the Union speech Tuesday evening before a joint session of lawmakers.

“Now whether you believe that or not is a totally different question,” said one person familiar with the administration’s outreach to lawmakers who spoke on the condition of anonymity regarding sensitive discussions.

Chief U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff and his fellow negotiator, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, arrived Thursday morning in Geneva and were seen meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who is serving as an intermediary in the indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Trump’s address Tuesday provided few if any clues as to his ultimate intentions. He repeated claims to have “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” with airstrikes in June but said the Iranians were starting to rebuild it and “are at this moment pursuing their sinister ambitions.” He said Iran has refused to pledge never to have a nuclear weapon and was already working on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) “that will soon reach” the continental United States.

All of those assertions have been questioned by international nuclear inspectors, who have assessed that most of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities remain intact, although their entrances are buried under rubble from the June bombings and have not yet been reached. Iran has amassed a worrisome amount of highly enriched uranium for which there is no other use but a nuclear weapon, although it has repeatedly said it has no intention of producing one.

Whatever Iran’s intentions may be, there is no evidence of an active plan to build a bomb, Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week in an interview with French television. Grossi was expected to attend Thursday’s Geneva meeting to provide the IAEA assessment and the parameters of inspections under any new agreement.

A report last year by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency — before the June U.S. and Israeli strikes — said that while Iran has missiles capable of targeting the Middle East and Europe, it could only produce a “militarily-viable” ICBM by 2035, “should Tehran decided to pursue the capability.”

Israel and the United States have said that much of Iran’s missile launch sites were destroyed during the June attacks.

As the drumbeats of possible war have increased, the administration has offered several different rationales for a U.S. attack: protecting Iranian civilians protesting the regime, Tehran’s refusal to agree to U.S. terms for a deal and defending some 35,000 U.S. soldiers based in the region from a possible attack.

While Trump has consistently said his goal is to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, others in the administration have said Tehran must end all nuclear enrichment, surrender some 900 pounds of highly enriched material that is close to weapons-grade, curtail its ballistic missile program and end support for proxy militias in the region such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Tehran has chosen to take Trump at his word, saying that the current talks are only about a verifiable pledge that Iran will not produce nuclear weapons in exchange for U.S. lifting economic sanctions.

Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said an agreement was “within reach” if the talks stick to Iran’s pledge not to build a nuclear weapon, adding on social media Thursday morning that Iran’s foreign minister has “sufficient support and authority” to come to a deal in the negotiations.

The new proposal Iran has said it is bringing to Geneva includes “token enrichment” — which Tehran says is its sovereign and legal right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — for medical purposes and other research, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity about closed-door diplomacy.

When an earlier round of talks took place last spring, Witkoff said publicly that Iran would be limited to 3.67 percent enrichment, the level agreed to in the 2015 deal under the Obama administration that Trump withdrew from during his first term. But within weeks, after some Republican lawmakers publicly rejected that option, Witkoff quickly pivoted, telling ABC in a May interview: “We cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability.”

Under the 2015 agreement, Iran shipped its then-existing enriched uranium stockpiles to Russia. This time, Tehran has said it will not allow the material to leave the country, although some officials have suggested they might be open to “diluting” enriched uranium to a lower level.

A number of Republicans and Democrats have said that military pressure on Iran can be useful if it leads to a nuclear deal. “What they’re doing right now, which is what I think is smart, is diplomacy backed up by force,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that “if the result of the buildup means that we can get people to the table and they can negotiate a diplomatic end to the current situation, that would be good — good for the United States, good for Iran, good for the region.”

But the question, raised by Democrats and foreign policy analysts, is what exactly the administration sees as a minimum viable deal and whether Trump will pull the trigger before negotiations have run their course.

“What I heard was real concern about, if you take out the ayatollah and take out their regime, what happens next?” Shaheen said, referring to Iran’s supreme leader and her conversations with foreign leaders. “Do you have the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] take over? Do you have all out civil war across the country? It’s really not at all clear. That’s why the lack of a strategy on the part of the president and the administration is so distressing.”

At the same time, “the president hasn’t explained why now is the moment for another war in the Middle East,” said Rep. Jim Himes (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “If anything, he has done the opposite by continuing to insist publicly that previous strikes ‘obliterated’ the Iranian nuclear sites.”

“If this administration intends to take military action against Iran,” Himes said, “it must articulate a clear objective to the American people and seek constitutionally mandated congressional authorization.”

Amid the negotiations, Iran has responded with threats, vowing in public statements to retaliate in kind to any U.S. attack. On Wednesday, Tehran accused Trump of telling “big lies” in his Tuesday speech, including his assertion that 32,000 Iranians had been fatally shot by security forces during the 10 days of street protests that swept the country last month.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says more than 7,000 people were killed during the demonstrations. Iranian officials have said about 3,000 people were killed, at least 200 of them police officers, by “terrorist” groups that took over peaceful demonstrations, but thousands of cases are still under investigation.

“We will enter the negotiating room with sincerity and goodwill,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi, a member of the negotiating team led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with NPR. “If there is political will on all sides, I believe the deal can be reached as soon as possible.”

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The New York Times – In January, at the peak of the violent crackdown on widespread anti-regime protests in Iran, a medical worker in the northern city of Rasht suddenly found his trauma center overwhelmed with hundreds of injured protesters.

Many were struck by multiple pellets or bullets targeting their heads, necks, chests, femurs and abdomens. “They were shooting to kill, absolutely,” he said.

After four days, he finally went home. Instead of sleeping, he began compiling 11 gigabytes of X-rays, CT scans and medical records, later sending them to us on an encrypted messaging app.
“They want to sweep it under the rug,” he wrote.

It is difficult to independently verify exactly how many protesters were killed by Iranian security forces. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which tallies only victims it can identify, has reported at least 6,800 protest-related deaths, with an additional 11,744 cases under investigation.

Other estimates put the death toll much higher. The former United Nations war crimes prosecutor Payam Akhavan believes it could be in the tens of thousands, based on reports by a network of doctors in Iran collecting hospital records as well as the scale and geographic spread of the killings.

“This is not just the worst mass killing in the contemporary history of Iran,” said Mr. Akhavan, now a human rights lawyer and a co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. “It is one of the worst mass killings in contemporary world history.”

Iranian officials have said that 3,117 people died in the protests and claimed that those killed were civilians, security personnel and “terrorists.” On Jan. 8, the authorities plunged the country into a near-total internet and phone blackout, which lasted for weeks, obscuring the scale of the crackdown.

They also tried to silence those who are uniquely positioned to describe the magnitude of the carnage and share the stories of the injured and the dead: Iran’s frontline medical workers.

In the days following the bloodshed, which reached its height on Jan. 8 and 9, we contacted dozens of doctors and nurses working in Iran, many of whom had also begun to quietly document what they saw as they attempted to provide aid to demonstrators.

Working with Times Opinion and relying on our contacts in the Iranian diaspora and inside the country, we surveyed 40 Iranian doctors and nurses across 14 cities and 11 provinces about their experiences treating wounded protesters. They shared their stories with us at great personal risk. Their identities were verified by Times Opinion and are being withheld to protect them from retaliation.
This is what they told us.

A range of medical providers participated in the survey, including trauma surgeons, anesthesiologists, orthopedists, nurses and emergency physicians. They messaged us from Gilan Province, on the coast of the Caspian Sea, Hormozgan Province on the Persian Gulf, and from smaller cities and large urban centers, such as Tehran and Isfahan.

The images and testimonies we received match accounts from witnesses and human rights groups of a sharp escalation in the authorities’ use of force to lethal tactics, including live ammunition and military-grade weapons, on the evening of Jan. 8.

They add to a growing body of evidence that the Iranian regime’s slaughter of unarmed protesters last month was not lawful policing of political unrest. It was a massacre, and it should be treated as such.
Representatives of the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment.

Many of the accounts we received from the doctors and nurses inside Iran were of children under 18 who were injured or killed. The youngest was a newborn.

“A breastfeeding mother was holding her baby when security forces opened fire on their car,” a doctor from South Tehran told us. “They arrived at the hospital in that same vehicle, riddled with bullets. The bullet passed through the baby’s hand and into the mother’s chest.”

A nurse from the central city of Isfahan sent us testimony from one boy’s father, who described his desperate attempts to save his teenage son’s life: “We had gone to the streets to protest. The officers attacked my son, targeting his head and neck with a pellet gun. I begged the riot police to stop. But before my own eyes, they fired the final shot — a live bullet — into his head.”

The boy died soon after arriving at the hospital. “We buried him as security forces stood watch,” his mother said. She described him as “a calm, social and well-mannered boy” who loved soccer. She added that she wants him “to be remembered as a hero, brave, with a pure and kind heart, and full of love for life.”

At least 209 children were killed in the protests, according to Shiva Amelirad, who represents a network of teachers’ unions inside Iran that is looking into the deaths. She said that number is a conservative estimate based on medical evidence and confirmation from victims’ relatives, teachers and others, and that the group is investigating more cases.

“There is a consistent pattern in many documented cases indicating that children were shot in the head,” Ms. Amelirad said.

Many of the doctors and nurses told us they went to great lengths to prevent the Iranian authorities from identifying their patients as protesters — for example, by falsifying their medical records, erasing security camera footage or treating them in private homes. They were worried their patients could be abducted or even killed.

Doing so put the medical workers themselves in danger. Many reported that they or their co-workers had been threatened, interrogated or summoned to appear before the authorities. Several said they had colleagues who had been detained.

Homa Fathi, a member of the International Independent Physicians and Healthcare Providers Association, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates health and human rights in Iran, told us that dozens of health care providers in Iran are now incarcerated. “Health care workers in Iran have been killed, arrested and tortured,” she said. “Many of them are facing harsh trials, prison sentences and a ban on their license just because they tried to help the injured.”

One of the doctors in Tehran who participated in our survey had previously spoken out publicly about regime pressure on medical staff members. He told us that security agents had warned him that if he didn’t keep quiet, they would send him “to the cemetery.”

A few days later, one of the doctor’s family members told us he had been arrested.

Several doctors we contacted said they were too haunted by what they had seen to take part in our survey. Among those who did respond, many reported experiencing extreme distress, including nightmares, flashbacks, grief, anger and anxiety. A few said they had become suicidal.

Many have concluded that they have little choice but to ask the outside world to protect them, along with their patients and other Iranians calling for basic freedoms. They pleaded for international help to ensure such atrocities don’t happen again.

So far, the international community has done little to put a cost on these crimes. When discussing regime change in Iran earlier this month, President Trump said, “It seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He has amassed U.S. forces in the region, raising the possibility of military action. Mr. Trump had also warned the Iranian authorities not to kill peaceful protesters, emboldening many to march.

But for now, the White House is still negotiating with Iran’s leaders over their nuclear program as if these atrocities had never happened, leaving many Iranians, including several of the medical providers we spoke with, feeling betrayed.

“This regime must end, and the blood of so many young people must not be trampled,” a surgical nurse in Isfahan wrote in response to our survey. “The world must not reach agreements with this regime and must help the people of Iran overthrow it.”

What we heard repeatedly was a deep fear that the regime would go unpunished. One doctor in Tehran cautioned that without accountability, “any dictator could rise and kill as many as it takes to keep control.”

Accountability could mean choking off the Iranian regime’s oil revenues, primarily from sales to China, which are used to bankroll repression. It could include asset freezes and the expulsion of Iran’s ambassadors. The European Union last month followed the United States in designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, and other countries should do the same.

International bodies, like the fact-finding mission on Iran established by the U.N., should secure and preserve survivor accounts and medical evidence so they can be used to support human rights prosecutions under international law. And they should press for the protection of Iranian medical workers and safe access to health care for their patients.

Nearly 54,000 Iranian demonstrators have been arrested, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Detainees are often held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, without access to lawyers, and are threatened with torture. Dozens of detained protesters face charges that can carry the death penalty. Karen Kramer, the deputy director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said she is “extraordinarily worried” that protesters held in unofficial “black box” sites are at grave risk of physical and sexual abuse and death because “state agents are able to act completely under the radar.”

Governments should increase pressure on Iran to immediately release detained demonstrators and medical providers and to stop any further deaths in state custody.

“If this regime remains, the true number of those killed will become many times higher,” the surgical nurse in Isfahan wrote. “Every night I fall asleep hoping for the freedom of my Iran.”

These doctors and nurses chose to speak out about what they saw in their hospitals and emergency rooms over the safety of silence. They are asking the world not to look away.

The post 40 Iranian Doctors and Nurses Describe a Massacre appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

The New York Times – When anti-regime demonstrations swept across Iran last month, the country’s security forces responded by opening fire and then pursued the wounded in hospitals and clinics.

Soon after the start of the protests, we began receiving messages from an underground network of doctors and nurses in the country — most sent through encrypted messaging apps to evade the regime’s surveillance apparatus. Medical professionals described hospital floors slick with blood, teenagers with severe pellet and gunshot wounds, and bodies rushed in from nearby streets. The crackdown extended to medical staff members. Physicians and nurses who treated protesters were threatened for providing care, and dozens of them have been detained. Many are still being held without charges. Amid the chaos, some medical workers quietly began preserving evidence of the massacre and its aftermath — X-rays, scans, photographs and patient records that they say contradict official accounts of the unrest. Providing care became an act of courage and defiance.

For the video above, New York Times Opinion verified these images by interviewing several doctors who treated injured protesters. They spoke on the condition of anonymity, given the safety risks. We also confirmed when and where the X-rays were taken and consulted trauma surgeons to assess and authenticate the patterns of injury.

Many of the images and descriptions are graphic in nature. But they offer a rare window into the extraordinary risks Iranian doctors and nurses took to save lives and to preserve evidence of the government’s violence.

You can read their full eyewitness reports here.

 

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PM News – Iran on Wednesday rejected US allegations regarding its missile program, calling President Donald Trump’s claims that Tehran is developing missiles capable of striking the United States “big lies.”

Speaking on X, Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said:

“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest, is simply the repetition of ‘big lies.’”

Baqaei did not clarify which specific claims he was addressing, but hours earlier Trump had warned that Iran was working to develop missiles that could reach American soil.

Earlier this month, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that while Tehran does not currently have the capability to strike the US, it would target American bases in the Middle East if Washington launched a strike.

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump reiterated that Iran would never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, claiming Tehran’s leaders were “at this moment again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions.”

Iran has consistently denied seeking nuclear weapons, insisting it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Trump also claimed that Iranian authorities were responsible for 32,000 deaths during protests that began in December and peaked on January 8 and 9.

Iranian officials acknowledge over 3,000 deaths but attribute the violence to “terrorist acts” fuelled by the United States and Israel. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reports more than 7,000 deaths, noting the actual toll could be higher.

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Alhurra – Iranian protesters are not backing down. Over the weekend, students staged demonstrations at major campuses in Tehran and Mashhad, the first significant campus protests since January’s crackdown, which rights groups HRANA and Amnesty International say killed thousands. Videos from BBC Persian and Iran International show students denouncing “the dictator,” the Revolutionary Guard, and the Islamic Republic itself, demanding justice for those killed and calling for political transition.

The gap is clear: while the regime’s public messaging is focused on Trump’s timeline and the nuclear file, the street is focused on the regime.

Iran’s official press is not treating Trump’s 10-to-15-day window as a binding deadline. State-aligned outlets are dismissing it as “Trump’s new rhetoric,” and the regime insists it does not recognize any formal timeline, framing the window as Washington using time as another form of pressure.

That position has been held since January. Iranian officials say the country will not start a war, will not accept what they call “humiliating” concessions, and will respond to any American military strike with force that could spread across the region. Nournews, which is close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Trump’s threat “smells of miscalculation” and warned that “playing with time and threats can have consequences that are neither predictable nor easily contained.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran has put its own proposal on the table. From Tehran’s perspective, he said, there is no American deadline, only a short window to determine whether Washington is serious about returning to Geneva.

The threat language has grown sharper. Officials have stated, more explicitly than before, that American “bases, facilities and assets” in the region would be “legitimate targets” in the event of a strike. Conservative outlet Khabar Online reported that “according to Iran’s defense plan, in the event of a U.S. attack, Iran will target hundreds of important centers and bases in the occupied Palestinian territory at the first moment.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not softened his tone. In a recent speech, he said, “We must have deterrent weapons. If a country does not have deterrent weapons, it will be trampled underfoot by its enemies. Deterrent weapons are one of the obligations of our nation.”

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UpRights – Amid the deadliest nationwide protests in Iran since the revolution in 1979, the need to acknowledge suffering by victims and ensure their right to hold perpetrators accountable has never been more critical. In 2025, HRA, with legal support from UpRights, published the “Practitioner’s Guide to Addressing Alleged Serious Human Rights Violations and International Crimes Committed by the IRGC in Iran and Abroad”. Building on the Pasdaran Documentation Project (PDP), the Guide transforms structured documentation into a tool practitioners can actively use in navigating complex accountability landscapes concerning Iran.

Instead of functioning as an overly technical manual, the Guide is designed as a pragmatic roadmap to support victims, lawyers, investigators, civil society and other actors seeking practical ways to pursue accountability for alleged Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked violations and international crimes. In the absence of effective domestic remedies in Iran, the Guide realistically maps judicial, quasi-judicial and non-judicial pathways available outside Iran, including the limitations and challenges of each pathway. The Guide was presented by Valérie Gabard, Co-Director of UpRights during Asser Institute’s Panel Discussion, “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: human rights violations and international crimes in Iran and beyond” on 5^th February 2026.

This blogpost explores the Guide’s role as a practical tool to challenge impunity where domestic remedies are absent or ineffective. It examines the methodological approach used to identify feasible accountability pathways during the development of the Guide and highlights key considerations for practitioners seeking to apply this approach across different contexts.

The PDP, built by HRA with legal support from UpRights, was created with future accountability efforts in mind. The database systematically maps the IRGC’s structure, units, chains of command from its inception to the present day, and links those to documented incidents of serious human rights violations and potential international crimes, including repression within Iran and operations connected to IRGC structures abroad. Today, the PDP Database houses profiles of more than 4,800 IRGC members and 84,700 IRGC units, providing practitioners with solid foundations to advance accountability while also serving as an enduring public record of an institution notorious for its widespread abuses.

Developing an Accountability Strategy 

Recognising that accountability could be pursued on multiple fronts, the Guide provides practitioners across the world with a concrete and clear methodology to identify pathways to accountability, gain practical insights and plan effective international strategies as there are no viable domestic remedies in Iran. It adopts a victim-centred and broad approach to accountability encompassing judicial, quasi-judicial and non-judicial pathways, including transitional justice mechanisms, and sets out to assess the viability of different pathways.

Developing an accountability strategy like the one outlined in the guide starts with the documentation and assessment of the human rights violations and/or international crimes committed and the perpetrators that are alleged to be responsible for these acts. Since its establishment in 1979, the IRGC – a parallel military institution created in 1979 to protect the Iranian revolution and who respond directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader – has been allegedly responsible for a wide range of serious human rights violations and international crimes committed both within Iran and abroad. Outside of Iran, allegations of human rights violations or crimes involving IRGC’s members have been reported all over the world for decades and are an integral part of the IRGC modus operandi. These incidents mostly target dissidents or interests of foreign enemies to the Iranian regime such as  the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina.

In Iran, the IRGC’s involvement in violations or crimes relates inter alia to the targeting of political dissidents, journalists, activists, and any perceived enemy of the regime, including by kidnapping dissidents abroad and running unofficial detention centres across the country. Over the years, the IRGC has been involved in the violent repression of most, if not all, the protests challenging the Iranian Government. Most recent crackdowns like the repression of 2022-2023 “Woman, Life, Freedom”movement, and incidents such as the 2022 “Bloody Friday” in Zahedan not only constitute serious human rights violations but also amount to crimes against humanity, including political and gender persecution, as shown in our submission to the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran (FFMI) from 2023.

The IRGC also appears to bear primary responsibility for the deadly crackdown on protesters between 8 to 10 January 2026. Based on publicly available information to date, the acts committed by the IRGC in this context  similarly may meet the threshold of crimes against humanity in light of the verified scale of killings and injured, number of protesters arrested and detained, forced confessions already broadcast, nationwide geographic distribution, and deliberate deployment of military-grade weapons against civilians, as documented in HRA’s latest report.

Based on the human rights violations and/or international crimes documented, the second step is to map the full range of accountability pathways understood broadly as including judicial, quasi-judicial and non-judicial available at the international level. While Iran is the primary duty-bearer for its citizens’ human rights, there are no viable domestic remedies within Iran which makes accountability avenues outside Iran essential for victims seeking justice or redress.

In this context, human rights violations generally refer to violations attributable to the State – thereby engaging State responsibility. International crimes, by contrast, concern individual criminal responsibility under international law. The Guide underscores that accountability pathways for serious human rights violations and international crimes at the international level are fragmented and rarely offer fully satisfactory answers or comprehensive solutions for victims and affected communities.

As a result, the mapping contained in the Guide emphasises the strategic use of combined/mixed pathways such as criminal prosecution in third States under universal or extraterritorial jurisdiction, targeted sanctions under Magnitsky-style and global human rights sanctions regimes, and engagement with relevant UN mechanisms. Rather than presenting any single pathway as a solution, the Guide highlights the need for a coordinated, long-term strategy as well as the importance to have realistic expectations about each pathway’s viability and potential outcomes.

The mapping of accountability pathways is often undertaken in a theoretical manner – this fails to provide direct support to practitioners. Accordingly, the Guide incorporates a feasibility analysis. For each pathway, consideration is taken to outline in concrete and accessible terms:

1. its legal requirements;

2. the evidentiary thresholds needed;

3. Iran’s limited treaty ratification, reservation or declaration;

4. current contextual risks, challenges and political constrains; and

5. lessons from past Iran-related or other comparable efforts.

Because the alleged violations may amount to crimes against humanity and therefore attract criminal responsibility under international law, the Guide evaluates accountability options for both States responsibility and individual criminal liability. For example, it examines potential pathways at the International Criminal Court (ICC), International Court of Justice (ICJ), and third States proceedings under universal or extraterritorial jurisdiction and their feasibility.

For instance, because Iran is not a State Party to the ICC, the ICC’s ability to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed in Iran or by Iranian nationals, such as IRGC members, is extremely limited and currently unrealistic. The ICJ also has its own legal and political obstacles which make this pathway particularly challenging in the context of Iran. Recognising these limitations, the Guide places greater emphasis on feasible domestic forums outside Iran, notably third States proceedings under universal or extraterritorial jurisdiction, as the more realistic pathway to advancing criminal accountability,

In addition, States’ responsibility for human rights violations can be pursued in parallel through different forums, including strategic engagement with relevant UN mechanisms such as the FFMI, and using Magnitsky-style and EU sanctions regimes. While these tools have their limitations, including the lack of formal victim participation in the sanction’s designation process, they still serve as an important accountability tool especially when available avenues are otherwise limited. The Guide also recommends that any strategy on accountability related to Iran be framed under broader transitional justice principles to ensure on the long term that Iranian society can come to terms with its legacy of States’ abuses.

Key Considerations for Practitioners Applying This Approach Across Different Contexts

The approach underpinning the Guide offers a structured framework that practitioners can adapt across different contexts to pursue accountability, including incorporating transitional justice principles and pursuing non-judicial pathways for serious human rights violations and international crimes.

First, an effective accountability strategy begins with clearly identifying the types of violations, the scale of harm and the individuals or entities responsible. Tools like the PDP Database are especially valuable as they enable practitioners to transform fragmented information into connected, verifiable patterns of violation backed by structured, evidence-based documentation.

Second, practitioners must have clear objectives related to the accountability efforts they wish to pursue. Different accountability pathways serve different purposes. Practitioners need to decide whether they want to pursue short-term outcomes such as engaging with UN mechanisms or securing sanctions designations, or longer-term goals such as third States universal jurisdiction, or support to potential transitional justice initiatives. Each pathway comes with its own legal and jurisdictional requirements, evidentiary standards, risks, challenges and limitations. Clearly defining the objectives pursued is what can make accountability efforts move from abstract goals to actionable, effective strategies.

Third, context specificity is crucial in understanding different nuances and shaping accountability strategies. A pathway that worked in one country or case may not be viable in another. Effective strategies must therefore be tailored to the specific jurisdictional and legal requirements, evidentiary standards, political willingness and situational realities of each context. By conducting careful legal and contextual analysis together with a rigorous feasibility assessment, practitioners will be able to determine which pathways are most realistic and effective given the context.

Fourth, practitioners must keep in mind that accountability efforts can expose victims, witnesses, their families, and organisations involved in documentation or advocacy, to reprisals, intimidation or legal risks. Aiming to pursue accountability can also easily create unrealistic expectations for victims and communities that should be properly understood and managed from inception.  This is why risk assessment must sit at the centre of planning and practitioners must always prioritise a “Do No Harm” approach.

Conclusion

Judicial, quasi-judicial and non-judicial pathways together form a broader accountability ecosystem and when used strategically, each pathway can reinforce and strengthen one another. The most effective approach at the international level is rarely a single, isolated effort but mixed, long-term accountability strategies that combines multiple pathways conducted by one or several actors. For practitioners facing difficulties in navigating complex international accountability landscapes, the Guide serves as a practical tool in helping to map viable pathways, set realistic expectations, and design both advocacy and accountability strategies that can best deliver tangible results for victims pursuing recognition and some form of redress for their suffering.

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Al Jazeera – Thousands of Iranian students demonstrated at universities in Tehran and across the country for a second day as they reopened a month after deadly nationwide protests.

Thousands were killed during the demonstrations, mostly on the nights of January 8 and 9 during a state-imposed communications blackout, as the country faces the threat of another war with the United States and Israel.

The top higher-education institutes in the capital – including the University of Tehran, Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University, and Shahid Beheshti University – saw large numbers participating in the protests on Sunday.

Clashes broke out between anti-establishment students and those in favour of the theocratic state, many of them affiliated with the paramilitary Basij organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Streets outside the universities also saw a heavy presence by heavily armed security forces, including some filmed being called “dishonourables” after violently pushing back against students at a main entrance of the University of Tehran.

Students also protested at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, located in the holy Shia city in northeastern Iran, which was a hot spot for protests in January. Footage circulating online showed security forces charging at students inside the university.

In the village of Abdanan in the western province of Ilam, where protests took place last week, large crowds gathered on Sunday to cheer and welcome the release of a retired teacher who had been violently arrested by security forces at his home a day earlier.

Tens of thousands, including schoolchildren and university students, have been arrested during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests. Iranian authorities have refused to provide detailed arrest figures.

 

Opposing narratives

In Tehran’s universities on Sunday, there was once again a large discrepancy between the version of events broadcast by state media and viral footage of the protests released online by grassroots organisations, including student bodies.

State and IRGC-affiliated media showed Basij students, operating with state permits and backed by security forces, rallying near the main entrances or major areas of campuses to burn US and Israeli flags. They chanted “Death to America”, “Death to the shah”, “Allah akbar”, and “Either death or Khamenei”, in reference to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

State media said the pro-establishment students “honoured victims of recent foreign-backed riots” and also claimed that the Basij members were attacked by “pretend students” who were shouting “norm-breaking” slogans.

Some of the slogans in question being shouted by anti-establishment protesters included, “Death to the dictator”, “Woman, life, freedom”, and “The blood that has been spilled cannot be washed away”. In many videos released online, students can be seen saying that they were being attacked by Basij members.

Some of the footage circulating online showed a number of students raising Iran’s flag from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which features a lion and sun, to express backing for Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s ousted US-backed shah. The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency confirmed this, claiming that the move was aimed at “sending footage to anti-Iran media outlets” outside the country.

Pro-state students demonstrating on Saturday and Sunday also accused anti-establishment protesters of somehow being responsible for the unrest in January and allegedly rejoicing in the deaths of thousands.

“They bloodied January and ended up dancing about it,” state media showed Basij students chanting.

This was in reference to countless Iranian families and their supporters, who have in recent days been holding mourning events commemorating 40 days since their loved ones were killed during the nationwide protests. They have somberly clapped, played music in front of mosques, and held up “victory” signs to break state-imposed norms during such events.

Iranians from diverse ethnic backgrounds across the country say they have undertaken the unprecedented practice not out of joy, but to express pride for family members and compatriots killed while peacefully protesting.

The Iranian government claims 3,117 people were killed during the protests, all by “terrorists” and “rioters” who were armed, trained, and funded by the US and Israel. It has rejected accusations by the United Nations and international human rights organisations that blame state security forces for being behind the protest killings.

Iranian authorities also continue to demand “evidence” from the international community while rejecting an independent UN fact-finding mission and imposing draconian internet restrictions for a seventh consecutive week.

The government says it formed a local fact-finding mission, but has provided no clarity on when results may be expected.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified more than 7,000 fatalities during the nationwide protests, more than double the government’s number, and is investigating nearly 12,000 other cases.

Mai Sato, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said more than 20,000 civilians may have been killed. US President Donald Trump put the death toll at 32,000 people on Saturday.

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The New York Times – A second day of antigovernment protests erupted on university campuses in Iran’s two largest cities, according to student and human rights groups as well as videos, which were verified by The New York Times, despite a deadly state crackdown on unrest.

The protests took place on at least seven university campuses in Tehran, the capital, and in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to accounts from student groups. They come as Iran’s clerical leaders struggle to manage uprisings at home and a looming risk of war with Washington.

They are also some of the first protests since security forces violently put down nationwide protests in January, killing thousands of people. Since then, the government has arrested around 40,000 people, according to several rights groups, and has seized the assets of people supportive of the protests, which called for an end to the rule of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Still, many Iranians have continued to signal their dissent with events commemorating slain protesters, signing petitions, and organizing sit-ins. But they had largely refrained from protesting again.
That changed on Saturday. As the first day of a new semester in Iran began, anti-government protests erupted at multiple universities, according to student groups and videos verified by The Times.

Students continued protesting on Sunday, wearing black to mourn those killed in earlier protests, according to accounts from student groups and videos verified by The Times from the Tehran University of Art and the Iran University of Science and Technology.

The government has not yet officially acknowledged the university protests, though state news media has reported on the tensions on university campuses.

Hossein Goldansaz, the deputy for social affairs at the University of Tehran, acknowledged the protests to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

“Radical slogans will only waste the students’ time, and students must be very careful that it does not lead to violence,” he was quoted as saying. “I told the students that if this happens, I will not support them under any circumstances.”

The protests come as many Iranians brace for the possibility of war with the United States, according to interviews with residents who say they are trying to stock up on canned goods or making plans to seek shelter in remote regions or flee the country.

Negotiations between Washington and Tehran to limit Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities have yet to yield a breakthrough.Regional officials have expressed concerns that war could be imminent The U.S. military has amassed dozens of warships, fighter planes and reconnaissance jets in the region in preparation for a possible conflict.

Talks between Iran and the United States, brokered by Omani diplomats, will resume in Switzerland on Thursday, Oman’s foreign minister said on social media. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “a solution is achievable,” but reiterated the government’s position that it would not give up its right to nuclear enrichment, as Washington demands.

“Students see the contradiction clearly: While the authorities project strength abroad and engage in brinkmanship with Washington, they are domestically weaker than at any point in recent years,” said Omid Memarian, a senior fellow at DAWN, a Washington-based human rights organization focused on the Middle East.

“The government cannot indefinitely invoke the possibility of war to justify silencing dissent,” he added.
It remains difficult to gauge the size of the current protests or whether they will spread further.

Last December, university students were among the first to join protests that began as strikes in several cities’ bazaars over Iran’s deepening economic crisis. The demonstrations quickly grew into a nationwide movement, demanding an end to Iran’s authoritarian rule.

According to Iran’s government, more than 3,000 people died in the crackdown on unrest it blamed on “terrorists” backed by Israel and the United States. Rights groups, like the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, say more than 7,000 people were killed.

By late Sunday, students said they planned to continue their protests for a third day, with students in the city of Isfahan vowing to join on Tuesday. “We neither forgive nor forget,” a student group said.

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