Iranian authorities are using wartime conditions to intensify repression through mass arrests, fast-tracked prosecutions, political executions and harsh prison sentences, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
The rights group said more than 6,000 people had been arbitrarily arrested since the US-Israeli military attack on Iran began on February 28, including protesters, journalists, lawyers, rights defenders, dissidents and members of ethnic and religious minorities. It said authorities had carried out at least 39 political executions during the same period.
“Iranian authorities are exploiting the crisis to further erode the human rights of people in Iran,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director of research, policy, advocacy and campaigns.
Amnesty said Iran’s 88-day internet shutdown, which ended with restrictions on May 26, helped isolate more than 90 million people and obstruct documentation of abuses. It said authorities also criminalized efforts to bypass restrictions through VPNs or satellite internet, including Starlink, with warnings that some cases could fall under the Espionage Law, which carries the death penalty.
“To maintain their grip on power, the authorities have unleashed an all-out assault on people in Iran,” Guevara Rosas said.
The group said detainees had faced enforced disappearance, torture, forced confessions and denial of access to lawyers. It said documented abuses included mock executions, beatings, suspension from hands and feet, solitary confinement, and denial of food and medical care.
Amnesty called on Iranian authorities to release arbitrarily detained people, disclose the fate of those disappeared, lift remaining internet restrictions and halt executions.
“The international community must not allow the Iranian authorities to use the conflict as a smokescreen to deepen their machinery of repression,” Guevara Rosas said.
