Iranian authorities are using the cover of what they call “wartime conditions” to intensify their repression of dissent through mass arbitrary arrests, accelerated grossly unfair judicial proceedings, politically motivated executions, harsh prison sentences, and asset confiscations, Amnesty International said today.
Since the unlawful military attack launched by the USA and Israel against Iran on 28 February 2026, Iranian authorities have arbitrarily arrested more than 6,000 people, including protesters, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, dissidents, and members of ethnic and religious minorities. Senior judicial officials have ordered expedited prosecutions against those arrested, including on capital charges, amid widespread concerns of enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and the use of forced “confessions” in grossly unfair sham trials. During the same period, authorities have imposed decades-long prison sentences against individuals and carried out at least 39 political executions.
Authorities systematically isolated more than 90 million people through an internet shutdown, violating their right to freedom of information, through the longest and most suffocating internet shutdown on record lasting 88 days, while criminalizing online activity as “espionage,” which is punishable by death. The internet was restored, with restrictions, on 26 May 2026.
“Iranian authorities are exploiting the crisis to further erode the human rights of people in Iran who are already suffering from the devastating consequences of unlawful air strikes by US and Israeli forces, as well as decades of crimes under international law at the hands of the Islamic Republic,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director of Research, Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns at Amnesty International.
“To maintain their grip on power, the authorities have unleashed an all-out assault on people in Iran, targeting anyone who dares to criticize the Islamic Republic, share information about the US or Israeli air strikes or human rights violations with the outside world, or simply attempt to break through what became the longest recorded internet shutdown to communicate with loved ones or access independent information.
“Iranian authorities must lift all remaining restrictions on internet access and stop imposing internet shutdowns on Iran’s population. They must release anyone arbitrarily detained, protect all detainees from torture and other ill-treatment, disclose the fate and whereabouts of those subjected to enforced disappearance, and immediately halt all executions, with a view to establishing an official moratorium on the death penalty.”
Authorities have also openly threatened to commit further mass killings of anyone expressing dissent or advocating for the downfall of the Islamic Republic system and vilified critics as “traitors” and “enemy collaborators”.
The internet blackout imposed by the authorities since 28 February 2026 severely obstructed in-depth documentation of human rights violations. For this press release, Amnesty International spoke to 10 informed sources outside Iran, including victims’ relatives, human rights defenders and journalists with information about violations. The organization also analysed videos published online, reviewed official text messages sent by the authorities, examined official statements and state media reports, and reviewed reports from independent media and human rights organizations based outside Iran.
Internet use criminalized
The sweeping repression has taken place amid an unprecedented nationwide shutdown of access to the global internet, which lasted for 88 days.
On 25 May 2026, President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to restore global internet access. Internet access began to be restored the next day, amid reports of ongoing restrictions, including in accessing social media applications and filtering in place. It remains unclear whether internet connectivity will be sustained, amid conflicting announcements by official bodies, including the judiciary’s media centre, appearing to question the legality of the presidential order restoring the internet. Concerns also remain over censorship, surveillance and the prosecution of individuals seeking to circumvent restrictions through the use of VPNs.
The internet blackout functioned as a central pillar of the authorities’ repression strategy, creating conditions in which widespread crimes under international law can be carried out with impunity.
A discriminatory system of tiered internet access was introduced by the authorities allowing only a small number of pre-approved users, including those linked to state institutions and some approved professional sectors, to access less restricted global internet through “Internet Pro” services while denying the wider population access to the internet and connection to each other and the outside world. Given that access through Internet Pro was tied to users’ registered SIM cards and identity verification systems, many people expressed concerns that it was not secure from state monitoring.
The authorities have actively criminalized efforts by the public to access the internet.
To maintain their grip on power, the authorities have unleashed an all-out assault on people in Iran
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International
Iran’s police force, known by its acronym FARAJA, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) issued direct warnings to the public via text messages, framing ordinary online activity as a matter of national security and threatening those accessing the global internet through VPNs or satellite connections with arrest, prosecution, asset seizures, and other punishments under the Espionage Law, which provides for the death penalty.
Text messages reviewed by Amnesty International indicate that the authorities have sent coercive messages to individuals, identified through their digital activity, who circumvent internet restrictions. These messages explicitly accused recipients of committing criminal offences, referencing IP addresses, VPN or satellite internet use. They threatened measures including blocking cell phone services and SIM cards, and referral to judicial authorities, while warning that any alleged link to “hostile states” or the “Zionist regime” would result in prosecution under the Espionage Law.
One such message sent by FARAJA, reviewed by Amnesty International, warned the individual that their line will be blocked if they continue to access the internet. Two messages to other individuals warned that their “unauthorized” and “unlawful” use of the internet through VPNs and proxies “is a crime” and that all their communication services will be blocked. All three messages threatened referral to the judicial authorities which would entail criminal prosecutions risking heavy prison sentences or the death penalty.
Amnesty International reviewed a further eight text messages sent by the authorities warning that photographing areas damaged in air strikes and sharing such content with media or online platforms are deemed as “collaborating with the enemy” will incur legal consequences. The messages also instructed people to inform on one another in the case of “suspicious activity”.
The authorities have framed the use of alternative internet technologies that seek to circumvent the internet shutdown, particularly Starlink satellite systems, as a form of espionage or “collaboration with hostile states”. In a statement on 17 March 2026, the Ministry of Intelligence announced that “hundreds” of Starlink devices had been seized and warned that acquiring or using such systems is a criminal offence punishable by death.
The prolonged internet shutdown had devastated livelihoods across Iran, collapsing small businesses and wiping out income for millions of people who are dependent on digital connectivity, according to state-affiliated media inside Iran.
Mass arbitrary arrests, prosecutions and asset freezes
The authorities have arbitrarily arrested thousands of people, including children, across the country under the pretext of national security, including for peaceful acts protected under international human rights law.
On 17 May 2026 Iran’s police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, announced that more than 6,500 “traitors and spies” have been arrested since 28 February 2026. Mass arrests have taken place in provinces across the country, according to Iranian officials and state media, including Alborz, Ardebil, Esfahan, Fars, Gilan, Golestan, Hamedan, Ilam, Kerman, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, North Khorasan, Qazvin, Qom, Semnan, Tehran, West Azerbaijan, and Yazd.
Officials and state media have systematically vilified those arrested, labelling them as “traitors”, “terrorists,” “mercenaries,” “counterrevolutionary groups,” “agents of foreign powers” and “enemy collaborators.
Accusations against those detained, as announced by the authorities and reported on state media, include alleged collaboration with Israel and/or the US; possessing, selling or using Starlink equipment; sharing content about the conflict on social media; expressing views supportive of air strikes against the Islamic Republic and/or welcoming the death of senior officials; sending images of sites hit by Israeli-US air strikes to “hostile” media including Persian-language media outside Iran; spreading false news and rumours in order to disturb public opinion; writing slogans in public places; cooperating with “terrorist” media outlets; “insulting the independence and freedom of Iran and Islamic sanctities”; and “carrying out propaganda activities against the country, the flag, and national and religious symbols.”
Official statements, information gathered by Amnesty International from victims’ families and human rights defenders, as well as reports from media and human rights organizations outside Iran, indicate that the authorities have also exploited the cover of war to further crush civil society. Authorities have arbitrarily arrested, threatened and/or summoned hundreds of protesters; human rights defenders; lawyers; journalists and other media workers; civil society activists; labour rights’ activists; students; teachers; justice-seeking families of protesters and bystanders unlawfully killed or arbitrarily executed; ethnic minorities, including Ahwazi Arabs, Baluchis, and Kurds; and religious minorities, including Baha’is and Christians.
The international community must not allow the Iranian authorities to use the conflict as a smokescreen to deepen their machinery of repression and carry out crimes under international law with impunity.
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International
Lawyers representing individuals charged in politically motivated cases are among those targeted. For instance, according to human rights groups, the office of the prosecutor in Tehran summoned both Amir Raisian and Milad Panahipour on 29 April 2026 and charged them with “spreading lies” and “spreading propaganda against the system” for publicly raising due process concerns in the case of their client, Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, 18, who is at risk of execution in relation to the January 2026 protests.
As part of the crackdown on dissent, judicial authorities have also issued sweeping orders to identify, freeze and seize assets, including bank accounts, properties and other financial holdings, targeting individuals accused of cooperating with “enemy states” or “hostile media.”
In March 2026, the judiciary announced the deployment of a digital system called “Saham” to enable the rapid identification and seizure of assets of people it called “terrorist and mercenary agents affiliated with the Zionist enemy and other hostile countries.” Since then, the authorities have announced the seizure of the assets of more than 750 people whom they refer to as “traitors” and “enemy agents” living inside and outside Iran, including journalists in the diaspora.
Enforced disappearances, torture and forced ‘confessions’
The authorities have subjected individuals detained to incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, coerced “confessions” and denial of access to a lawyer.
Among those subjected to enforced disappearance was prominent lawyer and human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh who was arbitrarily arrested in Tehran on 1 April 2026 and disappeared for around six weeks. According to an informed source, authorities denied the family any information about Nasrin Sotoudeh’s fate and whereabouts following her arrest. She was released on bail on 13 May 2026.
Two other human rights lawyers, Astareh (Maryam) Ansari and Elham Zera’atpisheh, have also been subjected to enforced disappearance since their arrests in Fars province on 3 and 4 May 2026, respectively.
Journalist and human rights defender, Mary Mohammadi, a Christian convert, has been subjected to enforced disappearance since late February 2026. According to an informed source, she had travelled from Tehran to Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, and was in contact with her family until around 26 February 2026 before communication ceased. The authorities have refused to disclose her fate or whereabouts to her family but, according to information gathered by Amnesty International, she was initially held in a Ministry of Intelligence detention facility in Ahvaz before being transferred to an undisclosed location on 2 April 2026.
In another case documented by Amnesty International, the authorities subjected the sibling of a human rights defender and media worker based abroad to enforced disappearance for several weeks to pressure the individual to cease reporting on human rights violations in Iran.
Amnesty International fears that these and other detainees are at grave risk, particularly amid reports of torture and other ill-treatment in detention and deaths in custody in suspicious circumstances.
Amnesty International has documented torture and other ill-treatment against detainees since 28 February 2026, including mock executions through simulated hangings and putting a gun in the mouth, beatings, suspension from hands and feet, prolonged solitary confinement, and denial of food and medical care.
Authorities have also used forced “confessions” as a propaganda tool, broadcasting videos on state media prior to judicial proceedings. Amnesty International reviewed 18 videos showing dozens of forced “confessions” featuring individuals in visible states of distress “confessing” to peaceful activities such as sharing videos of air strikes with foreign media. Several videos were broadcast on the days that individuals were executed.
Several deaths in custody have also been reported. In one case reported to Amnesty International, Hesam Alaeddin died in suspicious circumstances in detention. According to an informed source, he was arrested in Tehran in April 2026 while seeking information about his brother who had been detained weeks earlier in connection with alleged possession of a Starlink device. The source said the authorities phoned his family several weeks after his arrest, instructing them to collect his body. The exact timing and circumstances of his death remain unclear to Amnesty International.
In another case, Hossein Ghavi (Silavi), from Iran’s oppressed Ahwazi Arab ethnic minority, died in custody after arrest by the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, in late March 2026. According to reports from human rights organizations outside Iran, authorities had accused him of filming bombed areas and sending footage to media outside Iran. On 2 April 2026, the authorities phoned his family and said he had died but provided no cause of death.
Expedited trials, executions and harsh prison sentences
Authorities have escalated their use of the death penalty as a tool of political oppression, openly signalling expedited judicial proceedings on capital charges of those accused of alleged collaboration with Israel and/or the USA.
Iran’s highest judicial official, the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, has repeatedly invoked national security and “wartime conditions” to threaten people with harsh punishments. In one instance, in the first week of the US and Israeli attacks on 4 March 2026, he warned that individuals who “act in line with the wishes and illegitimate interests of the aggressor enemy will be dealt with decisively and severely”.
Even after the fragile ceasefire was announced, on 19 April 2026, in a meeting with members of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary and provincial prosecutors, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei instructed officials to fast-track prosecutions against “foot soldiers and accomplices of the aggressor enemy”, underscoring the need for extreme speed.
Other judicial officials from across the country, including prosecutors from Hamedan, Khuzestan, Qazvin, Razavi Khorasan, Semnan and other provinces have made similar threats.
Since 28 February 2026, the authorities have arbitrarily executed at least 39 individuals on politically motivated charges following torture-tainted grossly unfair trials. They comprise of 16 protesters, nine dissidents, 10 individuals accused of espionage for the USA and/or Israel, and four accused of “armed rebellion against the state” (baghi). Scores of others remain at risk.
Authorities have also imposed harsh prison sentences. For instance, on 23 May 2026, the head of the justice department in Semnan province, Mohammad Sadegh Akbari, announced that two women were sentenced to 26 and 27 years in prison, respectively, for “establishing contact with hostile networks and sending visual content and information needed by the enemy to direct harassing actions against the honourable people of Iran.” He added that the harsh prison terms would serve as a “lesson” to others.
“The international community must not allow the Iranian authorities to use the conflict as a smokescreen to deepen their machinery of repression and carry out crimes under international law with impunity. Iran’s human rights and impunity crisis requires urgent and sustained diplomatic international action to prevent further atrocity crimes by the authorities, as well as establishing pathways for international justice including through the UN Security Council’s referral of Iran’s situation to the International Criminal Court,” said Erika Guevara Rosas.”