People in Iran are trapped between unlawful U.S. and Israeli attacks and deadly domestic repression.
This requires urgently combining international efforts to sustain a durable ceasefire, protect civilians, and deter war crimes by the USA and Israel, with efforts to prevent atrocity crimes by the Iranian authorities, and support Iranian civil society calls for fundamental changes, including a rights-respecting constitution.
On the one hand, civilians have suffered grave harm amid relentless U.S. and Israeli air strikes and remain at risk of further harm given the fragility of the ceasefire reached on April 7, 2026. The air strikes killed at least 3,375 people, including 383 children, and injured 25,000, according to official figures.
On the other hand, people in Iran have been subjected to decades of brutal repression by the authorities of the Islamic Republic with impunity and are at further risk of atrocity crimes. Since February 2026, senior Iranian officials have openly boasted about their massacre of thousands of protesters in January 2026 and threatened to violently suppress any further attempted protests.
Against this backdrop, Amnesty International urges all states, as well as regional and international bodies, including the UN Secretary General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council’s expert mechanisms and relevant atrocity prevention mechanisms, to recognize that Iran’s human rights and impunity crisis, now compounded by armed conflict, requires a dual people-centered diplomatic approach.
This requires urgently combining efforts to establish a durable ceasefire, protect civilians, ensure respect for international humanitarian law and deter war crimes by all parties to the conflict, with robust efforts to prevent further atrocity crimes by the Iranian authorities against the people of Iran.
This must include addressing structural conditions and root causes of Iran’s human rights and impunity crisis, and supporting Iranian civil society-led calls for fundamental changes, including to the constitution, to ensure equality and respect for human rights, including the right to take part in public affairs.
Read “Trapped Between Unlawful Attacks by the USA/Israel and Internal Deadly Repression: People in Iran Face Dual Atrocity Risks.”