Iran International
A video showing Iranian police beating and sexually humiliating a teenager while officers laugh, insult him and film the abuse has unleashed fury across Iranian social media, with users asking what may happen beyond public view.
The footage shows several uniformed officers surrounding the teenager as he is struck and subjected to sexual humiliation. At one point, an officer appears to expose or touch the boy's buttocks as other officers watch.
The atmosphere captured by the camera has become almost as central to the outrage as the physical treatment itself. The officers can be heard joking during the encounter.
“We haven't seen his buttocks yet,” one voice says in Iranian Turkish during the recording. Another uses a homophobic slur against the teenager.
“If they sexually assault a child in front of a camera, what is happening in detention centers?” one social media user wrote, invoking the death of Mahsa Amini after her detention by morality police in 2022.
‘What happens behind closed doors?’
The teenager has been described by accounts circulating the footage as 13 or 14 years old, although his age has not been independently established. Police later referred to him as a suspect without specifying his age.
The images quickly produced a torrent of anger online, much of it centered not simply on the violence but on how openly it appeared to take place.
“When this happens publicly and with this degree of impunity, there can be no guarantee about people's safety in detention centers and behind closed doors,” one reaction said.
Another user returned to the same fear in starker terms: if this can happen to a teenager in front of a camera, “what is happening in detention centers?”
“If we die from this pain, it would be understandable,” another wrote.
Some demanded that the footage be circulated widely enough for every officer involved to be identified.
Police confirm Tabriz confrontation
East Azarbaijan province police on Thursday confirmed that the confrontation occurred in Tabriz on June 4, 2026 after the person was detained following a street fight, according to the police account carried by state media.
Police said the provincial commander had disciplined the officers involved and placed them on “waiting for service” status. Further legal and disciplinary measures were being considered through the police inspectorate, according to the statement.
Dadban, an Iranian legal rights group, argued that the images should not be reduced to “inappropriate behavior” or an internal disciplinary issue.
The beating and humiliation of a detainee by state officers can carry criminal liability under Iranian law, Dadban said. If the person shown is a minor, the sexual conduct would also fall under legal protections covering children and adolescents and should trigger an immediate, independent criminal investigation, the group said.
Another video fuels the anger
The footage emerged only days after another video from Tabriz circulated widely online, showing a police officer holding two young men's heads close to the loud exhaust of their vehicle.
The apparent purpose was to force them to experience the noise their car had been making.
That video drew significant engagement on social media after appearing online.
Dadban argued that even if the men had committed a traffic offense, police had no authority to invent a roadside punishment. Officers could document an offense, take measures permitted by law and refer suspects to the appropriate judicial authority, the group said.
The two recordings circulation within days of each other has intensified an online argument about police power, humiliation and accountability.
Bonuses sharpen anger
The videos have surfaced just as reports of new bonus payments to members of Iran's armed forces have spread online, adding another source of anger over the treatment of security personnel.
Reports published said a presidential bonus linked to service during the recent war had been deposited for armed forces personnel, with 100 million rials ($43) for staff personnel and 150 million rials ($65) for operational personnel.
Normal military personnel generally earn about 300 million rials ($130) a month, according to figures circulating with reports of the payments.
The timing has drawn a darker interpretation from some government critics on social media. They portrayed the payments as an effort to keep security forces loyal and ready to use greater force should another round of anti-government protests erupt.
That fear comes against a charged backdrop. Security forces were deployed in cities across Iran before a gasoline price increase took effect on September 8, with police, special units and Basij forces reported on streets and around fuel stations in cities including Tabriz, Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz and Isfahan.
For critics circulating the police videos, the combination is combustible: footage they see as evidence of officers abusing their authority arriving at the same time as reports of authorities rewarding members of the security apparatus.
One reaction to the teenager's treatment went further, questioning why people had previously objected to police stations being destroyed by Israel during the war.
George Floyd comparison resurfaces
One social media response to the teenager's video pointed directly to the contrast with the Iranian leadership's reaction to police violence abroad.
“If American police had committed such a crime, what would the Islamic Republic be doing now?” the user wrote.
It is a comparison with a documented precedent.
After Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in May 2020, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei used Floyd's death to criticize the United States and its treatment of Black Americans.
Khamenei described Floyd's killing as revealing the “nature” of the US system and invoked Floyd's dying words, “I can't breathe,” in arguing that they reflected broader grievances against Washington.
Iranian officials and state media devoted extensive attention to Floyd's killing and the demonstrations that followed.
The comparison adds another layer to the anger surrounding the Tabriz footage: For those sharing the teenager's video, the camera has now turned inward.
And beneath the insults, abuse, laughter and blows, one question has persisted across the reaction: if officers can do this while somebody is filming, what happens when nobody is watching?
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said its report examined the 2025-2026 protests and found that killings by state security forces took place across all 31 provinces. It described the repression as an unprecedented escalation from previous crackdowns.
At least 221 children were reported killed, some as young as two, while tens of thousands of people were detained, according to the report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council.
Security forces fired at crowds
The mission said security forces positioned themselves on rooftops and other elevated locations and fired assault rifles into crowds.
In Karaj, forces used tear gas to trap demonstrators in narrow alleys before shooting at them, the report said. Protesters suffered severe injuries to the head, chest and eyes from metal shotgun pellets, with some left permanently blind.
Security forces also attacked healthcare facilities, beating and arresting wounded protesters and detaining some healthcare workers, according to the mission. It said the actions deterred injured people from seeking treatment.
Five-month internet shutdown
Iranian authorities imposed a nationwide internet and communications blackout on January 8, at the height of the violence, the mission said.
The shutdown lasted more than five months, which the mission described as the longest nationwide communications shutdown on record, restricting access to information and emergency coordination.
The report said tens of thousands of people were arbitrarily detained and that some faced torture, solitary confinement and denial of access to lawyers. Families were in some cases left without information about detainees' whereabouts, raising concerns of enforced disappearances.
Authorities also delayed or refused to return bodies to some families, demanded payments and pressured relatives to sign statements falsely describing victims as state agents, the mission said.
Executions linked to protests
The mission said Iran also intensified its use of the death penalty against people linked to the protests.
At least 29 men were executed between March and August 2026 following expedited trials, including five who were executed publicly.
More than 70 people, including five women and three boys, remained at imminent risk of execution, it said.
The mission concluded that violations including murder, imprisonment, torture and other inhumane acts amounted to crimes against humanity because they formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians.
US strikes also examined
The report separately found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed war crimes in two strikes during the conflict with Iran.
It said US Tomahawk missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, killing more than 150 people, including about 120 children.
A separate US strike in Lamerd dispersed tungsten pellets over a sports complex and nearby residential area, killing 22 civilians, the mission said.
The mission said the attacks amounted to indiscriminate strikes resulting in civilian deaths and damage to civilian objects.
The report states that senior officials directed, executed, and subsequently covered up acts that constitute crimes against humanity.
The findings are based on interviews with 270 witnesses, analysis of over 2,000 videos, and leaked official Iranian government documents.
"Amnesty International unequivocally opposes violations of international law by all parties and rejects any attempt to instrumentalize the suffering of victims of human rights violations in Iran to justify unlawful attacks that inflict further civilian harm," said Secretary General Agnès Callamard at the report's press launch, addressing both state repression and broader regional conflict.
Calls for international criminal prosecutions
Amnesty International identified 87 Iranian officials, including top IRGC and police commanders, who it said should be investigated for crimes against humanity under superior responsibility principles. Amnesty said that it shared its findings and the list of identified officials with Iran's leadership prior to publication but received no response.
"This investigation exposes the layers of command and coordination behind the Iranian authorities' deadly protest crackdowns," Callamard said. "The agents on the streets operated within a hierarchical and coordinated chain of command linking them to officials who directed, enabled, facilitated and supported crimes committed on a massive scale. It is beyond time to establish an international criminal justice mechanism for Iran before another protest massacre."
The report warned that impunity for the 2022 crackdown directly enabled subsequent mass atrocities, warning that state suppression of demonstrations earlier this year bore the same hallmarks on an even wider and deadlier scale. Amnesty urged the UN General Assembly to establish an independent international criminal justice mechanism to prosecute responsible officials.
High-ranking officials named for criminal investigation
Among the top-tier officials listed for criminal investigation under command responsibility principles are Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed on February 28, 2026, during military strikes, and former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, who died on June 13, 2025.
Other key figures identified in the report include Ahmad Vahidi, who served as Minister of Interior during the 2022 crackdown and was subsequently appointed General Commander of the IRGC, Deputy Interior Minister for Security Majid Mir-Ahmadi, Tehran IRGC Commander Hassan Hassanzadeh, and Tehran Deputy Prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari.
Leaked documents show early surveillance directives
Minutes from confidential security meetings show that within 48 hours of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody on September 16, 2022, state officials focused on controlling the public narrative and suppressing online protests. Security chiefs discussed strategies to secure public statements from Amini's father to support the official explanation of her death.
A government resolution dated September 18, 2022, assigned the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit to monitor athletes and political figures. The same document tasked the Ministry of Intelligence with tracking actors, artists, and opposition movements.
Written orders drove escalation of lethal force
Written instructions issued by the General Staff of the Armed Forces on September 21, 2022, ordered security forces nationwide to deliver a "firm and severe response" to demonstrations. Of the 326 fatalities documented during protest dispersals or in militarized zones, 178 occurred within the first two weeks of the crackdown.
Amnesty documented a total of 377 protest-related deaths, including 56 children. State authorities have officially acknowledged only 202 deaths and falsely attributed most fatalities to "rioters" or "armed terrorists" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Security forces used assault rifles, machine guns, and shotguns loaded with metal pellets at close range, while kinetic impact munitions caused severe long-term physical injuries and loss of vision among survivors.
Disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities
Baluchi and Kurdish protesters and bystanders accounted for 62% of all recorded deaths during protest dispersals, despite representing a much smaller share of Iran's overall population.
Operational guidelines detailed the deployment of Basij militia units and motorcycle patrols of up to 40 vehicles per battalion to maintain street control and prevent anti-government slogans from being written in urban centers.
Systemic detention abuses and judicial cover-ups
The investigation documented widespread torture, beatings, rape, and sexual assault against detained protesters, including minors. Internal judicial communications show that prosecutors classified formal rape complaints against IRGC agents as "completely secret" and instructed staff to close files over time without citing security agencies.
When lower courts delivered murder convictions against security personnel, higher authorities intervened to overturn the verdicts, reclassify the killings as unintentional, or reduce prison sentences. State courts also penalized bereaved families by withholding statutory financial compensation and attempting to coerce false television confessions attributing deaths to opposition groups.
