UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC – Investigative Bodies Press conference: FFM Iran

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us here at this press conference with the independent International Fact Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As you may know, the Human Rights Council established the Fact Finding Mission in November of 2022 to investigate alleged human rights violations related to the protests that began in September of that year.

Now the Mission released its latest report last week and presented those findings to the Council yesterday.

And unfortunately with us, not with us today is the Chair of the Mission, Sarah Hossein, who was unfortunately unable to join at the last minute.

We do have with us Mr Max du Plessis, who will start us off with a brief opening, opening remark and then we'll open the floor to your questions.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for being here this morning and apologies that the Chair is not able to join us because of unexpected circumstances.

It's my honour to nevertheless represent the fact finding mission on Iran and to do so in the context of what you will appreciate are fast developing circumstances.

And we yesterday presented our report and we did so after a very considerable amount of effort.

And you will also appreciate that in January, the missions mandate was extended for a further two years following the protests that had already taken place early in January, starting already in December last year.

We've been gathering the facts around that protest and the events that unfolded.

And we are also, as you can imagine, at keeping a very close eye on the latest developments that have occurred arising from the armed conflict that's been unfolding as we sit here today.

So we are in a space where we are working particularly hard to keep abreast of the facts as they develop.

We're doing our utmost to ensure that there is a space in which individuals who are afflicted by not only the acts of protest repression that we have seen unfolding in the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past months, but also the fear of those repressive tactics and acts increasing in the times that lie ahead.

That we've done our best to monitor that situation as closely as possible and to be a repository for facts as they unfold and to allow for witnesses and evidence to come forward so that it can be collated and analysed carefully according to the standards that we have adopted for our office.

And in that relation, I am happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Thank you, Mr Duplessy.

Now we'll open the floor to questions.

If you could please identify yourself and the media outlet that you work for, it will start in the front row.

[Other language spoken]

Laurentia Swiss news agency.

Thanks for the press conference.

So yesterday and the in some statements before you briefly touched on me NAB what happened in that's that's cool and there is an ongoing inquiry, but the US military.

But what have you done on that so far and do you start to have some indication on exactly what happened and who you might attribute these bombings to and whether they amount to a particular particular crime already?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for that question.

Indeed, it's of particular concern to the mission that this attack took place as you know, on the very first day of the campaign.

We know that the attacks destroyed the school in Minab in the southern province of Iran.

We have credible reports that we have been considering, which indicates killing of at least 168 people.

And we know that the vast majority of them were goal students, many of them as young as 7.

So we are alive to those facts.

We are aware of the fact that the United States has indicated that it is conducting its own investigation.

We ourselves are in a position where we are considering each of the facts as they emerge.

We are in a position to gather those facts, and we are doing so with a concerted effort to understand who might have been responsible, what the reasons for the attack might have been, and to understand what the consequences, if any, might be under the relative legal frameworks.

We are then at this point in time, we're at an early stage of that investigation.

You can imagine that it is impossible for us to do more than at this stage from afar.

Consider what has happened.

We don't have access to Iran.

We have asked for that access and will continue to seek that access.

But from afar, we are certainly most concerned about the the news about that attack and we are in a priority fashion considering what that attack means and what the implications are.

But at this stage, I can't say that we are able to say anything beyond the very considerable concern that the mission has for that school and the killing of, obviously what appeared to be numbers of children and teachers that are entirely innocent.

[Other language spoken]

We'll take a question from the New York Times, from Nick *******.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the briefing.

I just wondered if you'd had any direct contacts with people in the United States Department of War who are supposedly conducting this inquiry, if you have any sense of of how that has progressed and your level of confidence in what is being done from that end.

And second question, given the Internet blackout, I'm wondering what kind of whether you've been able to establish any kind of systematic picture of interventions by the Republican Guard forces in Iran in terms of actions against any protests they are getting, all the actions they are taking to maintain their control on the streets.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for that question.

No, we've not yet been able to reach out to anybody in the United States administration.

That's not to say that we wouldn't welcome any such information if it were to be provided.

It's clear to us that whatever happens in respect of such an event, given the innocent lives that have been lost, there is a critical need for such an investigation to be done and for an independent outcome to follow.

And which, of course, we as the mission would be particularly concerned to receive information of.

From our perspective, we know that others have also begun to consider the attack.

We've seen NGOs looking into the attack, and we ourselves are doing our best to understand precisely what has happened.

But in short, we would be certainly welcome to receive any such information from any Ave.

As you know, we would, as the mission, have our own independent obligation to consider those facts and to understand precisely what it is that those facts lead to by way of legal consequence.

And that's an analysis that that is ongoing in relation to the Internet blackout.

It is of particular concern to us that that Internet blackout continues.

We know that already that Internet blackout resulted in the difficult situation of cloaking the Iranian government's response to the January protests.

The difficulty, of course, in understanding what's happening on the ground right now is compounded by the Internet blackout.

But as the mission, we are doing our best to be available to speak to witnesses where they have been able to reach out to us and to do so in a manner which consistently keeps to the rigorous standards of us, ensuring that if there is the possibility of a witness reaching us, there's a possibility of NGOs being able to facilitate information to us As the mission.

As I've said already, we remain the repository for such information and to gather it and to do the necessary collation and consideration of those facts as across the different sources to ensure that we not only have a proper narrative coming out, but that we do say in a manner which attempts to ensure that there is a credible accounting of what has been taking place under what we understand is tolerable situation right now on the ground.

Could I, could I just follow up on that then and say, I mean, you know, we have anecdotal accounts of, you know, anti government protest in the context of this particular military action by the US and Israel.

And I'm just wondering if you have anything that allows you to characterise the way Iranian authorities are responding to that.

We've, we've seen like you, the public accounts, we've seen reports coming out, but we are in a situation where it's impossible for us to have verified anything at this particular time.

We are certainly concerned that if these accounts are correct, they point to the current situation again align for the possibility of escalated repression and for reaction against those who have dared to express dissent.

We are particularly concerned about that because of past patterns which we've investigated.

And so the difficulty that we have seen is that because of these past practises, there is the ever increasing risk that such a pattern is again repeated.

And right now, because the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is in a situation of reaction and is in a situation of being cornered, obviously, at a time when there are these precipitous strikes that are taking place, there is every reason for us to be concerned that that risk may well materialise.

But we are considering the facts in order to see precisely what is developing on the ground right now.

We are, as I say, alive to the reports.

We see them and we are collating them, but we haven't come to any particular findings.

[Other language spoken]

We'll take another question from the front row.

[Other language spoken]

Good morning, Israel Sakov with F the Spanish news agency.

I just said in in the report you presented yesterday to the Human Rights Council that in June Israel committed war crime in the attack against the the prison in Evin.

I could, I would like to know if what do you know more than is that that you said yesterday in the in the statement about this attack and if you know if the Israeli government is conducting any enquiry or investigation on this issue?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for that question.

What we have established is that it was an armed conflict between Iran and Israel in June of 2025 and that as a result of that, civilians and civilian infrastructure had to be protected under the laws of war.

We found further that Evin Prison is such a civilian infrastructure and that Israel deliberately, it appears to us on the evidence that we have collated and which you'll be able to find in our conference room report, which will be released later today, that there are credible grounds to believe that that was a strike on the prison that was committed by Israeli forces.

And that because of the laws of war having been flouted, that that constitutes a war crime.

The details of that, as I say, are set out in the conference room report and that report will be released later today.

In respect of your second question, we've not heard any news of any investigation that has been undertaken by Israeli, by the Israeli government in respect of that attack.

But of course, we would welcome any such investigation where to take place.

And we would consider it important, in light of our findings in the report around the numbers of individuals and who appear to have been civilians and who are innocent in that strike and who lost their lives, that such an investigation ought to be done.

Do you know if at any point the Israel said that this was a legitimate target for any reason?

The prison, my apologies.

Israel had said that it had struck it in prison.

It had made that clear, and it has not in our assessment.

It has not provided A justification for why that strike had taken place, which justifies the attack on the civilians that were included in the prison.

And for those reasons, as you'll see set out in the report, we've come to our conclusions.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, thank you very much for doing this.

Yesterday at the Council, you quoted the judge, Robert Jackson, and said that the he criticised the resort toward an aggrieved country and methods like diplomacy are open to an aggrieved country.

But the Iranians were attacked twice in eight months by the United States and Israel in the middle of the negotiation with the United States.

So my question is, who do you think could stop the US and the Israeli preemptive war against Iran?

[Other language spoken]

Firstly, let me make the point clear that the mission in respect of the armed conflict is considering each of the facts as they arise on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis, and attempting to make its best assessment of what's taken place.

In relation to the question directly, you're right that yesterday the mission quoted Justice Robert Jackson.

It's important to situate what that quote was about.

Justice Robert Jackson, as you know, was the chief prosecutor at Nuremberg and he was speaking on behalf of the Allied Powers and he was particularly at pains to criticise what he said was the resort to war as an aggrieved party, whoever that aggrieved party may be.

He said all other methods, persuasion, propaganda, economic competition, diplomacy, were open to an aggrieved party, but aggressive warfare was outlawed and the mission yesterday stressed what he had said at paragraph 170 of his speech.

He'd said the following.

He said our position, that is in respect of the Allied Powers.

He said our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is not a legal means for setting those grievances or for altering those conditions.

To close that quote and let me stress that what the Mission was making plain is that it is essential, therefore, to make the evidence gathering of crimes committed by any party to the conflict, by all parties to the conflict.

Any violations of human rights by all parties to the conflict is something that the Mission is concerned about.

It's independently considering that in respect of any party to that conflict and in respect of any civilians that are harmed in that conflict.

And that is because these abuses by all parties would ultimately be that difficulty that we have been noting as a result of the aggressive warfare that has been outlawed under international law.

[Other language spoken]

Let's take another question online from Reuters.

Emma Farge floor is yours.

Just a clarification on the MENA strike.

Would you qualify your inquiries as a separate investigation or it's just part of what you're doing?

[Other language spoken]

And then do you have any information about arrests in Iran in recent days?

There's reports of up to 500 in recent days.

[Other language spoken]

In respect of the Minab attack, it is not a separate consideration.

It's a feature of our investigation.

Overall, we are concerned about attacks on civilians and the loss of life by all.

But of course, the Minab school strike is of particular concern given the numbers of people involved, the fact that they were clearly innocent civilians, and the fact that we already know that the vast majority of them were goal students.

And so in that respect, of course, there is a priority around ensuring that there is the truth around what happened and to understand what the legal consequences, if any, may be and to assess where accountability may lie.

And that is part and parcel of our overall mandate and we are certainly concerned about me now because of those features.

So to make clear, it is not an independent or different investigation.

It's part of our overall assessment and work that we are doing.

The excuse me, remind me your second question.

[Other language spoken]

It was just about arrests in Iran in recent days.

We have reports of about 500.

Do you have anything to confirm this?

[Other language spoken]

Now we've been noting the public accounts and we, as I've said earlier, we are collating each of those with a particular concern to understand exactly what is taking place.

We have noted those and we, as a result, are particularly alive to the difficulties.

That, as I said earlier, arise from the patterns of past protests and the repressive conduct that occurred there.

And as a result, any of the reports suggesting that there is a recurrence of such attacks and repressive acts is, of course, very much on our radar and we are analysing as best we can.

[Other language spoken]

We'll take another question online from Jamie Keaton from The Associated Press.

Thank you, Todd, and thank you for Mr Depici for coming to see us.

I understand what you're saying and I want to just try to drill down a little bit based riffing off both of Emma's question and then Laurence, question earlier.

What has changed for your office since this recent upsurge in violence?

Are you getting less information?

Are you getting more information?

Are you getting any better or less access to Iranian, Iranian authorities or American authorities?

There's so many questions about what the conditions are for civilians in Iran right now because of the, as you mentioned, because the lack of Internet access.

You guys are focused on this and we need, you know, vision through eyes like yours to help us elucidate what is going on there.

So can you please just lift the veil a little bit?

I know that you need to be very careful.

You're a lawyer and you've got to be patient and all this stuff.

[Other language spoken]

But please give us a better vision as to what really truly are the conditions.

For example, I'll just give another quick example.

You know, the, the, the casualty count that we've gotten on a civilians has relatively been unchanged for like the last week or so.

[Other language spoken]

Can you just try to help us, even if it's not fully confirmed, can you just please try to help us get a better picture of what's going on in the country for civilians and for human rights?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

It's not, it's not a case of wanting to provide a loyally response.

It's a case of wanting to be sure that we are are not saying anything that we haven't been able to in accordance with our mandate, credibly confirm.

That means that we are, of course, just like everybody else, we're hamstrung by the problems of gaining that access.

Firstly, we can't gain access physically and secondly there is the Internet black blackout.

And thirdly, there is the conflict which is creating the uncertainty and chaos that we're all appreciative of.

That is not to say that we are blind.

We are attempting to gather the facts as best we can and as this at this particular time we're able to say at least the following in answer directly to your questions about the toll in civilians and innocents.

We we have been able to confirm, and this is according to the World Health Organisation, that in Iran as of recently we've seen figures of 1300 individuals that have been killed.

We've mentioned yesterday that we've seen at least 200 children under the age of 12 that have been killed, 200 women that have been killed.

We know of figures speaking around 9000 injuries that have been recorded.

We also stressed yesterday that according to the World Health Organisation, and this is by the 11th of March, that they had verified 18 attacks on healthcare in Iran.

We now have 8 deaths amongst the health workers in Iran and we now have two deaths of health workers in in Israel.

We've seen reports by UNICEF and of course we place store on such reports of at least 20 schools that have been damaged in Iran.

We know about UNESCO, who's particularly concerned about strikes on cultural heritage sites, and UNESCO has been reporting that four of Iran's 29 World Heritage sites have been damaged since the war began.

And we also know, according to the UNHCR, of massive disruptions to civilian lives.

We have seen up to reports of up to 3,000,000 individuals having been temporarily displaced or having to have fled their homes to seek safety.

And in that respect, we've also been particularly concerned to keep a track of what appeared to be the civilian lives lost by the the strikes that are run has affected within the region.

And here we are also attempting again to gather those facts.

The credible reports that we've seen indicate that at least 17 people have been killed in the Gulf countries through such attacks, and at least 12 people have been killed by attacks in Israel, and that's according to, again, credible media reports.

So we're attempting to analyse those further.

That provides for us a pattern of the types of figures that are, of course, most concerning.

And we're doing the utmost to ensure that not only are we collating and gathering those facts, but we're also open to understanding through our own networks.

We've got numbers of our own networks of close contacts and CSO providers of information to keep that information coming and to assess it as best we can and to provide updates for the purposes of precisely such discussions as soon as we have an understanding for ourselves as to what that picture looks like.

[Other language spoken]

Do we have any more questions from the room or online?

[Other language spoken]

Another a follow up from the New York Times.

I mean, since you you characterised the attack on Evine as a civilian infrastructure and therefore a war crime.

I mean, are the deliberate strikes that we are seeing reported almost on a daily basis on civilian infrastructure in the context of this conflict?

Do they also qualify as war crimes?

We know that they're strikes, we know that they've been targeted, but we don't know what it is that has been targeted and the legal implications of it yet.

That's something that we are considering.

We need to be careful, obviously, recognising that where the strikes have taken place, they've been taking place across Iran.

We know that and we've been particularly concerned to try and understand precisely what it is that is being done in that particular set of of air strikes and what it is that is ultimately the normative standard or violations of that normative standard.

We we would in the same way that we've been able to consider the strike on Evin Prison, we are wanting to do the same assessment in respect of other strikes.

The difficulty of course, is somewhat compounded by the fact that there are multiple such strikes and we need to be clear about understanding precisely where that information comes from and precisely what it tells us.

So that's why perhaps we can also understand the focus has been for us certainly up until now on the min up school because that is something that we already know that there are reports about and considerations begin to that as the priority that I mentioned.

[Other language spoken]

Any last call for questions from our colleagues online or those in the room?

[Other language spoken]

In the third row, if you could just please identify yourself, newspaper, newspaper or you or would you qualify the strikes on the oil depot storage in, in Tehran, I think 2, two weeks or two weeks, one or two weeks ago the the strikes on the on the oil storage in, in Tehran or would you kind of qualify that kind of strikes?

Yeah, we've noted those strikes.

We've said that we're particularly concerned about strikes on civilian infrastructure and we are considering those as part of our ongoing investigation.

You, you don't, is it a war crime or it's, it's certainly too early for us to be able to say we would understand.

We need to understand the situation in far greater detail before we were able to come to that view.

I think we have a follow up from Jamie Keaton from AP Jamie, did you have a question?

[Other language spoken]

I just wanted to sort of bounce back on, on the final comments of your response to my question.

You mentioned that you're and, and I just wanted to be clear, you know, you said you're open to understanding through your own networks, you've got numbers from your own networks, close contacts, CSO providers, etcetera.

Could you just like, like I had asked originally, could you, could you enlighten us as to what the communication is with those networks now?

How, how is the information flow for, for, for your office?

And you mentioned all the United Nations, we, we've obviously heard from World Health Organisation, UNICEF, we hear from them separately from your office.

What is the level of communication?

Are you getting less or more information?

Are you concerned about not getting information?

Just kind of if you could just again, lift, lift the veil on the work that you're doing to try to document these specifically your office.

So it is obviously important for us to recognise that we work together with other UN agencies.

Those agencies of course in their own way is dedicated to gathering the facts within their particular emits.

So we certainly look to those and are happy to rely on them.

Within our CSO networks, there are multiple parties that have their own understanding of what's going on in the ground and they'd links.

Of course, I wouldn't wish to go into any detail about those.

And separately, we've got the ability for multiple reasons to know what it is that because of our existing facts and the existing reports that we've looked at give rise to what we might call predictors of further concern for us going forward in respective strikes, in respective repressive acts and in respect of what might be particular concerns to try and highlight and to focus on.

And that is where we are right now.

And you'll appreciate that that's taking place in a context where it is literally on a day by day basis, a struggle to understand the information and to gather it given the peculiarities and precarities of the situation.

[Other language spoken]

It is made harder, but we are certainly redoubling our efforts to keep up.

[Other language spoken]

If we don't have any more questions from the room or online, I think that will bring us to the end of this press conference.

Thank you all for joining us today and have a good day.

[Other language spoken]