Iran International
Human rights groups and families of detainees warn that wartime conditions inside Iranian prisons could trigger another tragedy like the June strike on Tehran’s Evin prison.
Activists say the situation inside prisons has become increasingly chaotic. While some non-political detainees have reportedly been released on bail and many staff have reportedly left their posts for safer locations, authorities have refused to grant furlough to political prisoners or people detained during recent protests or accept bail.
The volunteer lawyers’ website Dadban also warned that periods of intense political or military tension in Iran often lead to harsher treatment of political prisoners.
“In the Islamic Republic, during times of severe political or military tension, the risk of intensified repression and even retaliation against political prisoners increases,” the group said. In such circumstances, detainees may face greater restrictions, violence or additional pressure.
Warnings of a humanitarian crisis
Several human rights organizations — including the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners and a foundation linked to imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi— have warned of an impending humanitarian crisis in Iranian prisons.
In their statements, the groups said administrative order inside Evin has effectively collapsed, guards have abandoned their posts and cell doors have been locked, leaving prisoners confined inside.
According to these reports, food distribution and medical care have largely been suspended, while the prison shop — a key source of food and drinking water for inmates — has also closed.
In some cases, activists say, political prisoners have been transferred to unknown locations without informing their families. Family members of detainees say they have been given little information about the prisoners’ fate.
Reports from rights groups and relatives who have managed to contact inmates suggest that Iran’s special police unit (NOPO) has taken control of Evin prison.
The wife of political prisoner Mostafa Mohammad-Hassan wrote on social media that authorities plan to transfer political prisoners and foreign nationals held in Evin to a prison in the city of Qom.
Fears of another Evin tragedy
Reza Khandan, a political prisoner in Evin and the husband of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, has also raised the alarm in a letter to Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei.
Khandan warned that authorities had ignored repeated warnings from prisoners, as they did during the 12-day war in June when an Israeli missile attack on Evin prison destroyed parts of the complex and killed dozens of prisoners, visiting relatives and prison staff.
“This time no excuse will be acceptable,” Khandan wrote. “The direct responsibility for the lives of prisoners lies with the judiciary and the prison organization — prisoners who are still mourning their cellmates and families who mourn their loved ones.”
After the June attack, political prisoners were reportedly placed in shackles and temporarily transferred to other facilities, including Tehran Greater Prison (Fashafouyeh), Qezel Hesar prison and Qarchak women’s prison.
Conditions worsening in other prisons
Activists say the situation is deteriorating in other prisons as well.
Dadban reported worsening conditions at Qarchak women’s prison, south of Tehran — widely considered one of Iran’s harshest detention facilities.
According to the report, medical staff, administrative workers and guards have left their posts, leaving prison operations in disarray. Water shortages, already common at the facility, have worsened, and the prison shop is no longer operating.
At The Tehran Greater Prison blast waves from nearby explosions on March 2 reportedly shattered windows and damaged several walls. While no casualty figures have been confirmed, reports say prison guards beat inmates and fired tear gas inside the facility.
“My brother is in Tehran Greater Prison. For four days they have had neither water nor food,” a viewer wrote in a message to Iran International. “Officials have even welded the prison doors shut and the facility is now under the control of the Revolutionary Guards,” he added.
Similar incidents have been reported elsewhere. Kurdish news outlet Kurdpa said anti-riot guards attacked prisoners in Mahabad prison after inmates protested being held in dangerous wartime conditions following a strike on a nearby Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base.
According to the report, guards fired tear gas, injuring at least two prisoners. Food rations were reduced to one meal a day, and phone calls were restricted, according to the report.
“I am horrified by reports that at least eight people, including two children, have been sentenced to death in connection with the protests,” Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Another 30 people appeared to face the same risk, he added.
Amnesty International said last week that at least 30 people connected to the protests face possible execution. Eight of them – Saleh Mohammadi, 18, Mohammad Amin Biglari, 19, Ali Fahim, Abolfazl Salehi Siavashani, Amirhossein Hatami, Shahin Vahedparast Kolor, Shahab Zohdi and Yaser Rajaifar – were sentenced to death in February within weeks of their arrests.
At least 22 others, including two 17-year-olds, are awaiting trial or remain in legal proceedings, the rights group said. Amnesty reported that defendants had been subjected to “torture-tainted confessions” and other serious due process violations, including denial of access to lawyers during investigations and rejection of independent counsel chosen by families.
The organization called for an immediate halt to executions and the quashing of protest-related death sentences.
Human rights reports say tens of thousands of people have been detained in recent weeks, with some independent sources estimating the true number of summonses and arrests at close to 100,000 or even higher.
A significant portion of those detained are teenagers, young adults and citizens under the age of 30 – a generation that often has no prior experience of security interrogations or expedited court proceedings.
“I am extremely alarmed about the potential for regional military escalation and its impact on civilians, and I hope the voice of reason prevails,” Turk said in the same address.
“We, the filmmakers of Iran, condemn the suppression of people’s protests under any pretext. Protest is the natural and civil right of every human being. No power has the right to consider itself above the people,” the signatories wrote.
In a statement on January 25, the editorial board of Iran International said more than 36,500 people were killed during the targeted suppression of the Iranian protesters on the orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Referring to the killing of demonstrators, they added: “Shooting at people who have taken to the streets with empty hands is a crime against the right to life and has no justification.”
The statement, titled “We stand with the people of Iran,” comes after weeks of unrest and follows similar declarations by other civil and professional groups.
Earlier, more than 60 writers and activists in the field of children’s and young adult literature from several countries issued a separate statement condemning the killings on January 8 and 9.
On February 16, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations announced a day of public mourning and school closures on February 18 in response to the deaths of more than 230 children and teenagers during the January protests. The move amounted to a strike by teachers and a call on families to keep students at home.
In their statement, the filmmakers pointed to nearly five decades of governance despite what they described as vast natural and human resources, arguing that justice, welfare and security have not been achieved. They cited organized corruption, plunder of public wealth and what they called a “fear-inducing ideology” as drivers of widespread poverty and despair.
Among the signatories are Pegah Ahangarani, Mahnaz Afshar, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Jafar Panahi, Katayoun Riahi, Saman Salour, Kianoush Ayari and Asghar Farhadi.
The filmmakers concluded that they would document “these days and these wounds” and defend freedom of expression while standing alongside the Iranian people.
Behzad Nikyar, also known as Behzad Kimasi Selkhori, was killed on the evening of January 9 in the city of Qazvin, according to relatives who spoke to Iran International.
They said he was not taking part in protests and had walked a few meters from his home to leave a garbage bag at the end of his alley when he was struck.
The bullet entered one side of his body and exited the other as he was returning home, relatives said.
A video said to have been filmed the following morning shows blood stains along an alley in the Khaghani area of Qazvin, which family members say trace the path Nikyar tried to crawl back to his front door. He later died of his injuries. He was the father of one daughter, according to those accounts.
Nikyar’s death comes amid a wave of social media videos and testimonies alleging that security forces opened fire on pedestrians on January 8, 9 and 10, including people described by witnesses as not participating in demonstrations.
One video from Tehran’s Sattarkhan district, recorded by a building’s surveillance camera and circulated online, appears to show three people walking along a sidewalk when two armed men on a motorcycle stop ahead of them and fire in their direction without visible warning.
In Mashhad, a man was shot in the neck on the evening of January 9 while buying groceries about 50 meters from security forces, according to a witness account sent to Iran International.
In the northern city of Rasht, a resident said his elderly mother was hit by multiple pellet rounds in the head and legs after leaving a pharmacy at dusk that day. Another report described a pregnant woman shot outside a pharmacy in Isfahan.
Separately, a 16-year-old boy, Kasra Vafapour, was killed by a gunshot wound to the heart on January 9, according to citizen reports, which said he had gone out to buy medicine for his younger sister.
Residents from several cities, including Neyshabur, Borujerd and Sari, have said that security forces fired pellet rounds “indiscriminately” at passersby in recent weeks.
At least 36,500 people have been killed during the national uprising. Tens of thousands more have been reported injured or detained.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, spoke before the council in Geneva as most delegates remained seated, despite calls from campaigners urging democratic governments to walk out.
For many Iranians, the moment underscored what they see as a stark reality: while families continue to mourn the thousands killed in the protests, representatives of the same government accused of carrying out the violence were again granted an international platform at the world’s leading human rights body.
“Several UN Human Rights bodies have found that the Islamic Republic is committing crimes against humanity. The regime’s perpetrators should be punished rather than given a platform,” Brandon Silver, director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, told Iran International.
Walkout campaign falls short
In the days leading up to the session, human rights advocates and Iranian activists urged democratic governments to leave the chamber during the speech.
In an interview conducted before Gharibabadi was set to speak, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer called on governments to refuse participation, warning that granting Tehran a podium would send a devastating message to victims and their families.
“You cannot grant a false badge of international legitimacy to a regime that just murdered tens of thousands of its people,” Neuer told Eye for Iran, adding, “Shame on the UN for inviting the murderers who try to wound and kill innocent people.”
A global petition supporting the walkout effort gathered more than 360,000 signatures. But video from Monday’s session showed that most delegations remained in place as the Iranian official delivered his remarks.
Tehran’s narrative
During his speech, Gharibabadi dismissed reports of large-scale killings and instead accused the United States and Israel of orchestrating unrest inside Iran.
He claimed “enemies of Iran” had diverted economic protests into “riots and chaos,” alleging that demonstrators committed “Daesh-like atrocities,” while asserting official figures showed 3,117 total deaths — far below estimates reported by rights groups.
He further accused supporters of the protest movement abroad of spreading “fabricated casualty figures,” while insisting Iran itself was a defender of human rights.
The claims closely mirrored messaging that has circulated across state media and official channels since the crackdown.
A recent joint investigation by Iran International and The Free Press documented what it described as a coordinated international information campaign launched alongside the repression, blaming the domestic uprising on foreign conspiracies and amplifying those narratives through media personalities and social media networks.
Diplomacy over grief
For families of victims, the speech stood in sharp contrast to testimonies emerging from inside Iran.
One father told Eye for Iran that his 17-year-old son, wounded during demonstrations, was later killed inside a hospital while doctors were attempting to save him — one of many accounts shared by families seeking international recognition and accountability.
Activists say allowing such narratives to be delivered at the Human Rights Council risks amplifying disputed claims while survivors continue to demand justice.
Politics over principles
Later the same day in Geneva, Gharibabadi also appeared at the UN Conference on Disarmament, where images captured him greeting and shaking hands with UN Secretary-General António Guterres following the session.
For critics, the optics reinforced what they see as a rapid return to diplomatic normalcy despite the recent crackdown.
“The UN either stands for something or it doesn’t,” Hillel Neuer told Eye for Iran, arguing that international institutions cannot claim to defend human rights while granting legitimacy to officials accused of mass repression.
For many Iranians watching from inside the country and across the diaspora, the sequence—a speech at the Human Rights Council followed by diplomatic handshakes—symbolized the uneasy coexistence of international diplomacy and unresolved domestic trauma.
