With new reports of over 12,000 people killed, a cross-regional coalition of 30 non-governmental organizations and human rights groups today issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations to take immediate emergency action to halt what they describe as “horrific mass killings” of protesters by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In a joint letter addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, and the permanent representatives of UN Member States, the coalition warned that Iran’s violent crackdown on nationwide protests that began on December 28 has resulted in grave, widespread, and systematic violations of international human rights law.
According to credible reports cited by the coalition, more than 12,000 protesters have been killed by Iranian security forces in recent weeks, with many more injured, arbitrarily detained, tortured, or forcibly disappeared. Protesters have reportedly been shot with live ammunition, detainees denied access to lawyers and medical care, and journalists, students, women, and minority communities deliberately targeted. Internet shutdowns and information blackouts have further concealed the full scale of abuses.
“The Iranian regime is waging war on its own people,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, an independent Geneva-based human rights group. “When bodies are piling up in makeshift morgues and peaceful protesters are being gunned down in the streets, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity.”
The coalition stressed that Iran’s actions violate its obligations under the UN Charter and core international human rights treaties, including protections for the right to life, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and due process, and may amount to crimes under international law.
“The United Nations was created to respond to precisely this kind of atrocity,” Neuer added. “If the UN cannot act decisively when a regime massacres thousands of its own citizens for demanding basic rights, then its credibility is on the line.”
The organizations called on the UN to urgently convene emergency sessions of the Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council; publicly and unequivocally condemn the killings; establish independent international investigative mechanisms; demand the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained protesters; and ensure sustained UN monitoring and reporting until the violence and repression cease.
“Iranian protesters are risking their lives for rights that the UN itself is sworn to uphold,” said Neuer. “The world is watching whether the UN will stand with the victims - or look away.”
Signatories to the appeal come from Australia, Cameroon, Canada, France, Gambia, Ghana, India, Japan, Latvia, Moldova, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States.
The coalition emphasized that failure to act now would embolden further repression and bloodshed, and that decisive UN leadership is indispensable at this critical moment.
“The voices of Iran’s protesters must be heard, protected, and defended,” the letter concludes. “The credibility of the United Nations and its Member States depends on a response that matches the scale and urgency of this crisis.”
