The United Nations Office at Geneva
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HRC 61 - Human Rights in Iran - 16 March 2026
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21:32
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MP4
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1.3 GB
Iran dialogue – Human Rights Council
TRT: 2’36”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 16 MARCH 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speakers:
- Sara Hossain, chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Iranian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini
- Bahraini Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Abdullah Abdulatif Abdullah
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide, UN Geneva flag alley.
- Wide, UN Human Rights Council.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossein, Fact Finding Mission on Iran: “On 28 February, the U.S. and Israel launched a devastating aerial campaign against Iran, ostensibly targeting military sites and nuclear facilities. In almost three weeks, these strikes have resulted in mounting reports of civilian casualties, including of children.”
- Wide, podium.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran: “The human cost of the current strikes is already severe. Over 1,000 civilians have reportedly been killed, a primary school struck and hospitals and World Heritage sites destroyed. Strikes on oil infrastructure have caused toxic environmental consequences, with the possibility of serious long-term public health effects; this in a country that was already experiencing acute water shortages.”
- Wide, podium, screen showing speaker.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Sara Hossein, Fact Finding Mission on Iran: “Against this backdrop, we are particularly concerned by public statements from U.S. officials suggesting that long-established ‘rules of engagement’ do not apply in this conflict. We will continue to monitor compliance with international humanitarian law of all parties to the conflict and to gather evidence in this regard.”
- Medium, TV journalist with cameras.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Mai Sato, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran: “Today, three million people are temporarily displaced inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. The reported absence of functional air raid sirens and bomb shelters in many urban areas add to the concerns about basic civilian protection during hostilities.”
- Wide, podium, large screen, UN insignia, TV camera operator.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Iranian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini: “Today, in the face of the more than 1,300 innocent lives lost and over 7,000 people injured, including a six-month-old baby struggling for his life; the international community must not remain silent.”
- Wide, Iran ambassador speaking.
- SOUNDBITE (Arabic) – Ambassador Abdullah Abdulatif Abdullah of Bahrain: “The GGC States and Jordan condemn the attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against our countries, which have targeted civilians and critical infrastructure and civilian objects, endangering the lives of residents and the safety and security of the region. We reaffirm that such assaults and attacks that target third parties that are not a party to the conflict are a flagrant violation of state sovereignty and territorial integrity and are a violation of international law and cannot be justified under any pretext.”
- Medium, Iranian ambassador and delegation.
- Wide, delegates, photographers.
Middle East war’s ‘spiral of armed conflict’ in spotlight at Human Rights Council
The UN’s top human rights forum gathered in Geneva on Monday, where Member States highlighted the growing civilian toll of war in the Middle East, sparked by Israeli and U.S. bombing of Iran, counter-strikes by Tehran against Gulf states and Israeli shelling of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to attacks by the armed group.
“On 28 February, the U.S. and Israel launched a devastating aerial campaign against Iran, ostensibly targeting military sites and nuclear facilities. In almost three weeks, these strikes have resulted in mounting reports of civilian casualties, including children,” Sara Hossein, chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, told the Human Rights Council.
Presenting the mission’s latest report to the Council, Ms. Hossein pointed to the ongoing plight of ordinary Iranian people, “caught between a large-scale military campaign by two countries, the US and Israel, and ongoing repression by their own government in Iran”.
Residential areas, multiple oil depots and a desalination plant have been “struck, damaged and destroyed”, causing “severe harm” to civilians, insisted the independent rights expert, who like all those appointed by the Council is not a UN staff member nor paid for her work.
The rights expert also noted how airstrikes had destroyed a school in Minab in southern Iran on the first day of the war, killing more than 168 people, “the vast majority of them being girl students, many as young as seven years old”, she said, while expressing concern at “public statements from U.S. officials suggesting that long-established ‘rules of engagement’ do not apply in this conflict”.
In addition to the Minab school strike, 1,000 civilians had been reportedly killed “with hospitals and World Heritage sites destroyed”, maintained the Council’s Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato.
“Strikes on oil infrastructure have caused toxic environmental consequences…in a country that was already experiencing acute water shortages,” she continued. Echoing widespread concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian crisis inside Iran since the outbreak of war, the Special Rapporteur noted that three million people are now displaced inside Iran, while “the reported absence of functional air raid sirens and bomb shelters in many urban areas” added to concerns about basic civilian protection during hostilities.
Responding to the independent experts’ reports to the Council, the Iranian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said that more than 1,300 people had been killed and more than 7,000 people injured, including a six-month-old baby. “The international community must not remain silent,” he insisted.
The war is now well into its third week, having spread to nearly a dozen nations across the already fragile Middle East region.
Speaking on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Jordan, Ambassador Abdullah Abdulatif Abdullah of Bahrain condemned strikes by Iran “against our countries, which have targeted civilians and critical infrastructure and civilian objects, endangering the lives of residents and the safety and security of the region.
The ambassador also reiterated that the Gulf council had welcomed the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2817 Condemning Iran’s attacks against its neighbours on 11 March, supported by 136 UN Member States.
“Our countries reject the content of the reports of Special Rapporteur and the Fact Finding Mission, characterizing these attacks as retaliatory or reprisal attacks,” he said, insisting that “there’s no legal justification for such assaults and there is no way to legitimize those illegal acts” under international law.
Also addressing the Council, the Philippines echoed serious concerns by regional grouping ASEAN about the Middle East escalation.
“This spiral of armed conflict has already claimed many innocent lives, including those of children. This cannot and should not be normalized,” Member States heard.
ends
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
President, distinguished delegates and representatives of civil society.
When I assumed this mandate in August 2024, the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran was already deeply troubling.
I warned then that by the end of 2025, the number of executions could exceed 1000.
In the end, over 1600 people were executed in 2025.
Digital space was already subject to extensive restrictions, with some international platforms blocked and surveillance mechanisms embedded in communications infrastructure.
Civic space was already severely curtailed, with laws and policies rendering almost all forms of unsanctioned collective action unlawful.
And from previous mass movements, the patterns were clear.
Forced confessions broadcast on state television, Lawyers defending protesters, disbarred and detained protesters labelled terrorists are mercenaries.
What distinguishes the most recent mass movement from violations long reported by this mandate is not so much the nature of the state's response, but the scale of both the mobilisation and the repression it has provoked in connection with the nationwide protests.
Over 7000 deaths have been reported by civil society, with more under review.
10s of thousands of protesters were reportedly detained.
So too were medical professionals who treated the wounded and lawyers who sought to represent them.
What are widely regarded as false confessions were again broadcast on state television.
Protests were again labelled terrorists and members of minority groups were once again scapegoated as foreign agents, a pattern of persecution that long predates the current crisis.
At least 30 individuals, including children, reportedly faced the death penalty in connection with the protests.
What was new, and what has left a profound impression on me, was the violation of medical neutrality.
Hospitals were raided, wounded, protesters arrested from their beds, medical professionals assaulted and arrested, a state directive instructing hospitals to provide information on injured protesters.
The result was a healthcare system in which the injured feared seeking treatment more than the injuries themselves, and the act of saving life criminalised.
The volume of submissions I received for my report to this Council was extraordinary.
I received submissions from individuals with no prior history of activism who had never before engaged with my mandate, and they did so at considerable risk.
That speaks not to the strength of my mandate, but to the gravity of what people of Iran witnessed and experienced.
[Other language spoken]
President, my mandate exists for the people of Iran.
It does not matter who the perpetrator is.
When foreign states strike now for the second time in less than a year, the people harmed are the same people.
I have condemned the US and Israel's attacks as unlawful under the UN Charter last year, and this time again.
The strikes remain unlawful no matter the assumed or stated objectives of those strikes.
International law is not selectively invoked.
It applies to all parties in all circumstances.
The human cost of the current strikes is already severe.
Over 1000 civilians have reportedly been killed, a primary school struck and hospitals and World Heritage sites destroyed.
Strikes on oil infrastructure have caused toxic environmental consequences, with the possibility of serious long term public health effects.
This in a country that was already experiencing acute water shortages.
My mandate has long reported serious concerns of treatment of detainees, from medical neglect I'll treatment to deaths in custody.
Since publishing my report, the military escalation heightened concerns about all detainees, including those arrested in connection with the protests.
Families report not being able to reach their loved ones and worrying reports of acute food shortages.
Medical care are emerging.
Today, 3 million people are temporarily displaced inside the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The reported absence of functional air raid sirens and bomb shelters in many urban areas add to the concerns about basic civilian protection during hostilities.
The Internet shutdown imposed during the nationwide protests has been followed by a second in the wake of the military escalation, cutting people off from information and connectivity when they need it most.
I am aware that the people in Iran cannot hear my words.
Despite this session being live streamed, the people of Iran have endured an astonishing accumulation of violence and loss.
A military escalation followed by a crackdown and then a nationwide protest met with lethal force and mass detention.
And before they could draw breath, the military strikes again.
They have been killed, detained, displaced and cut off from the world, caught between sanctions and relentless repression.
There has been so much violence and so much death.
[Other language spoken]
President, if we put the people of Iran at the heart of any solution, the military escalation must stop and all parties must resume diplomatic dialogue immediately.
Any path forward must be grounded in human rights, the will of the Iranian people and full accountability for violations of international law by all parties.
When the strikes stop, the international community must not look away from what happened in December and the long standing grievances.
The people of Iran continue to be united by a deep desire for a different future calling for fundamental change.
They exercise their right to self determination.
That must be the centre of any solution.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
I now give the floor to the Chair of the Fact Finding Mission to present the report of the Fact Finding Mission.
[Other language spoken]
President, Excellencies and delegates, I speak today on behalf of the independent international Fact Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran and for my fellow members Viviana Kristjevic and Max du Plessisi.
In April 25, the Council requested us to investigate recent and ongoing serious human rights violations in Iran.
Since then, we've collected hundreds of evidence items and conducted interviews with the 164 victims and witnesses both inside and outside the country.
We've also examined nearly 30 reports from the government of Iran.
As you've heard today, the Iranian people are caught between a large scale military campaign by two countries, the US and Israel, and ongoing repression by their own government in Iran.
In this context, we'll provide the results of our work in three groups.
First, we'll share information we've gathered on the regional armed conflict and the impact on civilians.
Second, we'll update you on our ongoing investigations into the protests that began on 20th December last year and their oppression.
Third, we'll share our factual and legal findings related to the human rights violations and international crimes that were committed in Iran in 2025 up till December and the breakout of the protests.
Turning first to the conflict, on 20th February, the US and Israel launched A devastating aerial campaign against Iran, ostensibly targeting military sites and nuclear facilities.
In almost three weeks, these strikes have resulted in mounting reports of civilian casualties, including of children.
Hospitals, schools, cultural heritage sites, residential areas, multiple oil depots and as Desalina Tion plant have been struck, damaged and destroyed, resulting in severe harm to civilians.
On the very first day of this campaign, the air strikes destroyed a school in Minab in southern Iran, killing more than 168 people, the vast majority of them being girl students, many as young as seven years old.
Against this backdrop, we are particularly concerned by public statements from U.S.
officials suggesting that long established rules of engagement do not apply in this conflict.
We will continue to monitor compliance with international humanitarian law of all parties to the conflict and to gather evidence in this regard.
This situation has taken place just as the Iranian people have barely begun to emerge from the unprecedented horrors and violence unleashed upon them by their own government, The Government of Iran, following the protests that began on 20th December 2025, when millions of Iranis took to the streets across the country, first in relation to the economic crisis and then to demand fundamental change.
We have been receiving reports about the killings and injuries that took place in the acts of suppression of these protests.
On 8th of January this year, the deaths and injuries escalated significantly immediately after the government of Iran imposed another Internet shutdown.
Reports indicate that security forces began to use military grade weapons, including heavy machine guns, against protesters and bystanders.
During this.
Credible organisations suggest that over 7000 people have been killed, far exceeding the government's own staggering claim of 3117 fatalities over just a few days.
Reports indicate that security forces injured people on a broad scale, including by blinding them with metal pellet ammunition fired from shotguns, recalling the shocking patterns we saw during the Woman Life and Freedom movement being suppressed.
After the government crushed these protests, security forces carried out large scale detentions with credible information that more than 50,000 people were held.
They included, as you've heard, doctors who were arrested simply for treating the injured victims continue to demand truth, just and accountability for the violations that occurred during these recent protests and those that have occurred earlier.
But we must be clear that justice cannot be delivered through war and can only be pursued through accountability measures grounded in the law.
[Other language spoken]
President, I will now move to the factual and legal findings set out in our mandated report which concerned the period from 18th March to 27th December of 2025.
First, in the context of the armed conflict then between Iran and Israel in June 2025, we found reasonable grounds to believe that in carrying out the air strikes on Evin Prison, Israel committed the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against a civilian object, killing eighty people, including at least one child and eight women.
2nd, Iranian authorities themselves failed to protect detainees held at Evin Prison and other places and refused to disclose the fate or whereabouts of some transfer detainees from Evin in acts amounting to enforced disappearance.
Third, in the aftermath of the conflict, we found that the Iranian State increased measures of repression to suppress dissent through large scale arrest, detention and criminal prosecutions.
Ethnic and religious minorities were subjected to such prosecutions without respect for due process or fair trial.
Rights journalists, human rights defenders and social media users were targeted for expressing their views on the conflict or merely for calling for peace.
4th Rather than dismantling it's system of institutionalised and structural discrimination, Iran continued to use mandatory hijab laws and rules as a tool to repress women and girls.
5th Acts of transnational repression against journalists and human rights defenders reporting on Iran from abroad also increased during and after the the June hostilities.
These included assassination attempts and death threats and harassment of the families of these people inside the country.
As you've already heard, executions rose sharply during and after the June hostilities, with an appalling 1639 recorded during the year, exceeding the global total of known executions for the previous year.
Immediately after the strikes ended.
In three months, between July and September, at least 464 executions were recorded.
In the next month, in October, a further 222 people were executed, the highest monthly total recorded in 25 years.
The core lesson drawn from our investigations in this context is clear.
External military action does not provide accountability, nor does it bring meaningful change.
Instead, it risks intensifying domestic repression by a state that routinely resorts to repressive measures to suppress it's own people and to suppress dissent.
We're deeply concerned that the current security situation may again, as in June 25, be used to escalate repression and to punish those who have dared to express dissent.
[Other language spoken]
Given the systematic pattern of violations we've identified, practical transformative measures are required now.
First, we call on all parties to urgently and unconditionally end hostilities.
We call on the international community to de escalate tensions and resume a credible and good faith dialogue on peace, human rights, justice, and equal and inclusive participation in political and public affairs.
There's an urgent need to ensure full respect for international law to protect civilians and critical civilian infrastructure.
Second, we call on Iran to seize intimidation, harassment and arbitrary detention and implement a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Transformative change is urgently required, one that ensures the voices of all Iranians, including women, young people and minorities, can be expressed freely and without fear for their security, and that guarantees their ability to participate meaningfully in the public affairs of their country.
Third, we call on States to ensure that viable legal pathways, including humanitarian visas, remain open for victims and their families in Iran.
Acts of transnational repression should be investigated and those responsible prosecuted.
Effective remedies and measures of protection for victims of such repression must be insured.
4th and finally, it is essential to preserve evidence of human rights violations and international crimes in the context we've described.
There must be a firm commitment to pursuing justice and change through lawful accountability measures and not through violence.
War cannot deliver the outcomes that truth, justice, due process and transformative reparations can achieve.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
In accordance with our practise, we will begin by hearing from the delegations of the concerned, the countries concerned.
I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
You have a total of 6 minutes.
[Other language spoken]
Mr Vice President, today the most urgent and fundamental human rights issue concerning Iran is the imminent threat to lives of Iranian people whose lives are in immediate and grave danger under the shadow of reckless military aggression.
An aggression that is carried out by some of the most lawless and unscrupulous actors on the international stage and by individuals who demonstrate no restraint in killing civilians or in trampling upon the most basic and universally recognised human rights.
At this moment, to speak of anything other than these crimes and this act of aggression would itself amount to a grave the election of responsibility and a flagrant disregard for the human rights of Iranian people.
Today, the Human Rights Council and the Special Procedures mandate holders must speak unequivocally about the innocent children massacred at their school desks.
This Council must raise its voice for the people whose millennia old cultural heritage has been turned into a target of indiscriminate and unlawful attacks.
It must also speak for residents forced to breathe air contaminated with toxic pollutants released as a direct consequence of these assaults.
Mr Vice President, for 15 years in this City Council, certain Western countries have persistently advanced unfounded and politically motivated allegations of human rights violations against Iran, thereby laying the groundwork for the very aggression that we are witnessing today.
Minor and isolated issues in Iran were deliberately exaggerated and portrayed as grave and systematic violations in order to manufacture a pretext to normalise hostility against Iran.
Through sustained political pressure and propaganda, Iran was gradually portrayed as a legitimate target.
The carpet, the carpet bombing of civilians in Iran and the infliction of needless superfluous suffering are the direct consequences of the impunity granted to those who engage in perfidy and repeatedly betray the very principles of negotiation and multilateralism.
The invasion of Iran amid ongoing negotiations was not merely a betrayal of diplomacy itself.
It was a betrayal of very ideals of human rights and of the conscience of humanity.
At the at the same time, these same deliberately concealed for more egregious violations, including the devastating humanitarian consequences of unlawful sanctions and two manifest acts of aggression against Iran.
If this were not the case, why the these countries remain conspicuously silent in the face of the killing of innocent school children in Minab?
Why was such a heinous crime not unequivocally condemned?
And why?
Why the fundamental issue of aggression as the most serious violation of international law and the blatant violation of the Uranian people's rights to life has been overshadowed by peripheral political narratives.
Mr Vice President, in recent weeks, hospitals in Iran have been bombed, drinking water infrastructures have been deliberately targeted and homes have been destroyed over the heads of their inhabitants.
Only in the 1st 10 days of the invasions near 14,000 civilians unit have that includes more than 20 hospitals and further emergency bases were targeted in ace air strikes.
Under such circumstances, what exactly Iran is expected to do?
Do those who launch these attacks or those who encouraged, enabled and facilitated them possess even the most basic understanding of Iran's history, culture and civilization?
Iran is not a nation that submits to coercion, intimidation or lawless aggression.
Today, in the face of the more than one 1300 innocent lives lost and over 7000 people injured, including a six month old baby is struggling for his life, the international community must not remain silent.
The families of the more than 300 women and girls who have been killed are looking to the Human Rights Council for justice and for a clear and principled response.
If the response of this Council is once against silence, indifference or political selectivity, then it would be the end of the Council's stand after it was severely diminished because of its inaction during the Israeli crimes in Gaza.
Mr Vice President, Iran was subjected to aggression while it was actively engaged in negotiations and had explicitly affirmed its commitment to a peaceful and diplomatic resolution.
This reality sends a clear and unmistakable message to the international community and the message is that if reckless militarism, the erosion of multilateralism and the systematic disregard for genuine human rights are met with silence or indifference, Iran will most certainly not be the last country to suffer such treatment.
Finally, I have to reaffirm Iran is resolute in defending its people, its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.
In the exercise of its inherent right of self defence under international law, Iran respond decisively to any act of aggression.
[Other language spoken]