More Stories
Shahin Milani, the executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), told Iran International's English podcast Eye for Iran, the case marks a turning point – warning that even mid-level officials can no longer assume impunity.
“Iranian officials – even mid-level ones – should understand they are not safe anymore. If they leave Iran, justice may follow them.”
Why Argentina and why this matters now
The complaint was filed by a group of survivors together with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and supported by the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.
It asks Argentine judges to investigate crimes against humanity committed during the Islamic Republic's violent response to the 2022 protests, including murder, torture, gender-based persecution and targeted blinding.
Argentina was chosen because its courts recognize universal jurisdiction, allowing them to investigate atrocity crimes even when they were not committed on Argentine soil.
Crucially, Iranian officials – the alleged perpetrators – do not need to set foot in Argentina for a criminal investigation to begin.
Milani says that distinction changes the calculus inside Iran’s power structure.
“If Argentina issues arrest warrants, that alone is a success. Travel becomes risky. Borders become unpredictable.”
Argentina has already heard cases linked to abuses in Venezuela, Myanmar, and Spain’s Franco era, and has dealt with Iran-related cases before, including proceedings tied to the 1994 AMIA bombing – an attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
The list of 40 accused officials remains confidential for now. Much of the case, however, draws on years of documentation, including findings by the UN Fact-Finding Mission, which concluded that Iran’s crackdown amounted to crimes against humanity.
Three of the complainants have chosen to be publicly identified.
Kosar Eftekhari was 23 when she was shot in the eye during the protests. Mersedeh Shahinkar was also blinded at close range, but later returned to the streets wearing an eye patch as an act of defiance. Mahsa Piraei joined the case after her mother, Minou Majidi, was killed by security forces while demonstrating against the clerical establishment.
Majidi’s case drew international attention after an image of her daughter, Roya Piraei, standing without the mandatory hijab beside her mother’s photograph at her gravesite went viral. Majidi’s other daughter, Mahsa, is now seeking justice through the landmark lawsuit.
“In our own country, Iran, we were unable to find justice for my mother’s killing because there is no fair or independent judiciary,” Piraei told the Atlantic Council. “Our insistence on preserving human dignity is a global cause that knows no borders.”
Their stories form both the moral heart and legal backbone of the complaint.
Not compensation, only accountability
Unlike civil lawsuits in courts, this case does not seek financial damages.
“This is a criminal complaint,” Milani said. “It’s about responsibility, something painfully rare when it comes to the Islamic Republic.”
Even without immediate arrests, he said, the case lays the legal groundwork for accountability when conditions change.
Milani avoids predicting political collapse or transition. But he is clear about the role of human rights lawyers: they build cases now so they are ready when circumstances change.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. It’s possible that some of these officials’ circumstances change and they have to leave Iran – and they should know they’re not going to be immune from prosecution.”
In other words, even if justice does not arrive immediately, the legal architecture is being laid brick by brick – quietly, deliberately, and beyond Iran’s borders.
No one expects Argentina’s courts to deliver overnight justice. Similar cases against authoritarian officials elsewhere have taken years, and many defendants remain free.
For the families and survivors behind the complaint, however, this marks the clearest indication yet that the struggle that began in the streets in 2022 is now moving into courtrooms – and that justice, however delayed, may no longer be out of reach.
At the start of 2024, Iran appeared to be riding high — expanding regional reach, edging closer to nuclear threshold status and projecting confidence at home and abroad. That trajectory began to reverse in late 2024 and accelerated into 2025.
The past year brought direct confrontation with Israel and later the United States, the weakening of Tehran’s regional proxy network and mounting domestic pressures. What it did not bring was collapse.
That survival, analysts warn, may now be shaping how the Islamic Republic approaches 2026 — not as a moment for restraint, but as proof that it can endure unprecedented pressure and press forward.
The defining moment of the year was the June war with Israel, a confrontation that punctured long-held assumptions about Iran’s deterrence while stopping short of triggering a regime change.
On Eye for Iran, Middle East analyst and former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamed who directs the Inside the Middle East fellowship program for policy and security professionals; journalist and investigative reporter Jay Solomon, author of The Iran Wars; and historian Shahram Kholdi assessed what the Islamic Republic’s survival says about the year that is about to end and why its interpretation of that survival could make the coming year more volatile.
Fear is breaking — but survival is being reframed
Avi Melamed pointed to a psychological shift inside Iran as one of the most consequential developments of 2025.
“The most significant one is that I think that we are witnessing now a very significant shift in Iran in the sense that many Iranian people are no longer afraid of this regime,” he said.
That erosion of fear has coincided with widespread social defiance, particularly among younger Iranians and women, even as repression continues.
Shahram Kholdi said that Tehran is not reading this moment as a loss. Instead, he argued, the leadership is internalizing 2025 through a survivalist lens — one that encourages defiance rather than restraint.
“If something that can kill you doesn’t destroy you, it makes you stronger,” Kholdi said, describing what he sees as the clerical establishment’s core mentality after the June war with Israel.
That belief, he argued, helps explain why executions have continued and why the Islamic Republic is signaling resolve despite suffering unprecedented blows.
A strategic reversal — interpreted as a test passed
Externally, 2025 marked a sharp break from the trajectory that once favored Tehran. Jay Solomon described the year as a reversal after decades in which Iran expanded influence through proxies and deterrence.
“The word I’d use for the year is weakness,” he said.
Solomon pointed to Israeli strikes, the degradation of Hezbollah and Hamas, and Iran’s struggle to manage overlapping crises — from inflation and water shortages to public dissent.
Yet despite expectations of mass bloodshed following the June conflict, the Islamic Republic ultimately pulled back, reinforcing its own perception that it had weathered the storm.
Why 2026 may be more volatile
For the analysts the biggest concern for 2026 was the risk ahead.
Iran’s deterrence model has been punctured but not abandoned. Instead, Tehran appears determined to rebuild — restoring proxy leverage, advancing missile capabilities and reasserting influence amid uncertainty.
Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile appears largely intact following the June war, with roughly 2,000 heavy missiles still in its arsenal, according to Al-Monitor.
The outlet cited an Israeli security source saying that Israel's military intelligence had conveyed the assessment to the United States in an indication that Israel is urging Washington to again act to address the alleged threat.
Melamed warned that this environment heightens the risk of miscalculation. Kholdi argued that the belief that Iran “didn’t lose” the June war makes confrontation more likely, not less. Solomon added that shifting political currents in the United States are being closely watched in Tehran and Tel Aviv alike, narrowing the window for restraint.
The danger, the panel suggested, is that survival itself is being treated as victory.
As 2026 begins, the Islamic Republic may be weaker — but convinced it has passed a test. That conviction could shape the year ahead more than any battlefield outcome.
“For the first time, one of the first times in American history, what we’re seeing here is they’re not talking about only Iranian citizenship,” Rahnama said appearing on Eye for Iran podcast.
“What they’re including in there is being born in Iran.”
Rahnama said the change is being felt by non-citizens already inside the United States who are pursuing legal immigration pathways, including green cards, citizenship, asylum, and work authorization.
He stressed that the shift does not stem from the passage of a new immigration law, but from how existing immigration processes are now being applied.
“What has happened the last month from the last one policy is that the people who are inside the country who have applications pending… those applications are going to be halted now,” he said.
National security
The developments are unfolding alongside President Donald Trump’s expansion of his travel ban, a policy that restricts the entry of foreign nationals from certain countries into the United States.
Iran remains among the countries subject to a full suspension of entry for both immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The proclamation is formally written to apply to foreign nationals outside the United States who do not already hold valid visas and does not revoke visas issued before its effective date.
The Trump administration has defended the expanded restrictions as a national security measure, citing concerns about weak vetting, unreliable records, and corruption in some countries.
The measures are being described by authorities as a pause rather than a denial, but Rahnama warned that for many people, the distinction offers little comfort.
“What’s happening is a pause,” he said. “Basically, your application is not being processed and just sitting in there.”
He said the consequences are particularly acute for Iranians living in the United States on temporary visas, where delays can directly jeopardize legal status.
“If you are on a visa, you probably wouldn’t be able to renew that visa,” Rahnama said. “That simply means that you have to leave the country.”
'Running out of time'
Rahnama also said the pause is not limited to early-stage cases. Some applications that were already approved, or close to completion, have been reopened or frozen.
“Some of these cases that have already been either approved or in the process of an approval are being revisited,” he said, describing instances in which applicants were removed from naturalization oath ceremonies despite having passed interviews and background checks.
Concerns over immigration processing inside the United States have also drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. More than 100 Democratic lawmakers have sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services condemning the cancellation of naturalization ceremonies and the halting of immigration applications for nationals of countries covered by the travel ban.
The lawmakers cited cases in which individuals were pulled out of oath ceremonies moments before becoming US citizens and demanded transparency about the scope and duration of the pause.
Rahnama said prolonged delays can function as de facto denials for people already living in the United States, even without a formal rejection.
“For some people, that just basically means they’re going to run out of time to be legally present in the US,” he said. “That looks like denial… it would effectively feel like it.”
He added that the broader impact now extends beyond asylum seekers or people attempting to enter the country, increasingly affecting families and individuals who have built their lives in the United States under existing immigration rules.
“Not only the asylum seekers this time are going to be affected,” Rahnama said. “The people inside are going to be heavily affected.”
