Tehran: The war in the Middle East is likely to result in worsening institutionalized repression of Iranian citizens, UN-mandated investigators probing rights abuses in Iran said Wednesday. The United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran reported that civilians in the country were caught between ongoing armed hostilities and repression that has reached unprecedented levels, potentially amounting to crimes against humanity.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the UN mission highlighted that Iran’s deepening human rights crisis “is likely to worsen in the wake of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory strikes across the region”. The mission emphasized that over the past 11 months, it had identified “a clear pattern that is directly relevant to what we are seeing today in Iran”.
The protection of civilians, including detainees, becomes acutely precarious during armed conflict, and in the aftermath, state repression intensifies, particularly where, as now, a connectivity and internet shutdown is imposed, the probe stated. The three-person mission is tasked with gathering and preserving evidence of rights violations in Iran.
The UN Human Rights Council established the high-level investigation into ongoing serious rights violations in Iran in November 2022, in response to the deadly crackdown on widespread demonstrations sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched the first wave of attacks in a war that has seen Iran strike targets in multiple countries around the Gulf.
The report noted that “the human rights situation in Iran has been severely exacerbated by the US-Israeli air strikes since February 28”. It also warned that the Iranian population is now caught between a large-scale military campaign that may continue for weeks or months and a government with a long record of gross human rights violations, after barely emerging from a violent crackdown following protests that began on December 28.
The mission called for an immediate cessation of attacks by all parties to prevent further civilian harm in Iran and more broadly in the region. The mission’s latest report to the council, covering the period from April 2025 to February 18 this year, was released Wednesday.
It observed that well-established patterns of state-driven repression not only persisted but evolved and deepened, particularly following the upsurge in nationwide protests that began on December 28. The mission reported that security forces unleashed extensive lethal force, including with assault rifles and heavy machine guns, resulting in a significant number of deaths and injuries.
During the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, the mission found that Israel committed the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against a civilian object, specifically the attack on Evin prison compound, which resulted in around 80 deaths. It also found that many gross human rights violations by Iran amount to crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, gender persecution, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts. These were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilian populations.