Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organization, stated in its annual report that Iranian regime officials in 2025, referring to mass massacres following nationwide protests in Iran, carried out mass and arbitrary arrests and intensified repression under the pretext of national security.
In its report published on Wednesday, February 4, Human Rights Watch, referring to the deadly crackdown on nationwide protests, including the mass killing of protesters and bystanders by Iranian regime security forces, wrote:
“Evidence of a coordinated escalation in the authorities’ use of unlawful and lethal force since January 8, including of protesters and bystanders killed or injured by gunshot wounds to their heads and torsos. Authorities committed massacres amid a nationwide internet shutdown and telecommunications restrictions they imposed to conceal the true scale of the atrocities.”
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Part of the report states that Iran witnessed widespread and systematic violations of the right to life in the past Gregorian year, including through the use of the death penalty, and that more than half of the executions were carried out for drug-related offenses, which are clearly in violation of international law.
Human Rights Watch noted that the executions followed gross and systematic violations of fair trial standards, and that women and ethnic minorities, many of whom also belong to the Sunni religious minority, have increasingly been targeted for the death penalty.
Bahar Saba, senior Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, said:
“The spiral of impunity and bloodshed resulted in an execution spree unseen in decades, in 2025, and the deadliest protest crackdown that led to unprecedented mass killings of thousands of protesters and bystanders this year.”
“The international community should urgently pursue concrete accountability measures through all available avenues, including universal jurisdiction, to hold those responsible to account.” She added.
Regarding Iran’s human rights situation in the past Gregorian year, Human Rights Watch pointed to the arbitrary detention of hundreds of dissidents, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, members of ethnic and religious minorities, dual nationals, and foreign citizens.
The organization also described the Iranian regime authorities’ policy of repressing women, including the enforcement of discriminatory and humiliating compulsory hijab measures against them in the final months of the past Gregorian year, as a sign of a new wave of repression.
The Human Rights Watch report on prison conditions states:
Torture and other ill-treatment, including deliberate denial of medical care to prisoners, remained systematic and widespread. Punishments included flogging and amputations, which constitute torture.
Part of the organization’s report on Iran’s human rights situation in 2025 is dedicated to the repression of ethnic and religious minorities, including Baha’is.
Human Rights Watch also described Israel’s attack on Evin Prison in Tehran during the 12-day war as illegal and a clear war crime.
