UN fact-finding mission urges Iran accountability for deadly crackdown
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said the priority must now be to collect evidence and hold perpetrators accountable following what it described as the Iranian government’s deadliest crackdown on protesters since the 1979 revolution.
Addressing a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, mission chair Sara Hossain said credible reports indicated that “thousands of people have been killed since the protests erupted on 28 December,” while more than 24,000 people were reportedly arrested, including children, journalists and human rights defenders.
“In the context of the shocking recent events in Iran, the priority must now be gathering evidence and establishing whether human rights violations and crimes under international law, including crimes against humanity, may have occurred,” Hossain said, adding that accountability was “the only way to prevent the recurrence of such abuses and break the cycle of impunity.”
The mission said protests spread to all 31 provinces and that, since Jan. 8, authorities imposed a near-total internet shutdown, obscuring the true scale of the violence. Despite this, it has gathered testimonies and reviewed footage that appears to show security forces firing lethal ammunition into crowds, using metal pellets at close range, and pursuing mass arrests, including of the wounded.
Hossain said the scale and pattern of violations underscored “an urgent need for the international community to act,” while stressing that identifying and holding perpetrators and state structures accountable was imperative to prevent further harm.
