Crimes Against Humanity: The Islamic Republic in Iran from Inception to present
The Islamic Republic occupying Iran was not born of democratic will or popular sovereignty. It was forged through violence, ideological coercion, and the systematic elimination of rivals. From the terror campaigns preceding 1979 to the nationwide massacres of January 2026, state violence has never been incidental to the regime—it has been its primary method of governance.
This record is not episodic. It is continuous, coherent, and deliberate. The Islamic Republic’s crimes against humanity are rooted in its constitutional structure, institutionalized through its security and judicial systems, and enforced through recurring waves of mass repression. The current phase marks not merely escalation, but culmination.
Constitutional Roots of Repression
At the heart of the regime lies Velayat-e Faqih—the absolute guardianship of a cleric over society. This doctrine subordinates law, citizenship, and life itself to ideological obedience. Iran’s constitution criminalizes dissent through vague charges such as “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth,” transforming courts into instruments of terror. Women, religious minorities, ethnic communities, and political opponents are structurally denied equal protection under the law.
Repression in Iran is not a violation of legality. It is legality as designed.
From the outset, terror was a strategy. Islamist factions—some trained by the PLO—used assassinations, bombings, and arson to destabilize society. The Cinema Rex fire remains a defining act of mass terror used to seize power. In the 1980s, the newly formed Revolutionary Guards and revolutionary courts institutionalized killing. Tens of thousands of political prisoners were executed in the early years of the regime and during the 1988 prison massacres. Sham trials and summary executions became routine tools of governance.
In the 1990s, the regime crushed student movements and intellectual life through violent crackdowns and the notorious “chain murders” of writers and dissidents. In 2009, millions protesting electoral fraud were met with mass arrests, torture, rape, and extrajudicial killings. The 2018–2019 economic uprisings were suppressed with open gunfire in the streets, while internet blackouts concealed mass murder.
The 2022 uprising—Woman, Life, Freedom—marked a historic rupture. Sparked by the killing of Mahsa Amini, women and youth led an unprecedented national revolt. The regime responded with intensified executions, enforced disappearances, sexual violence in detention, and collective punishment.
Then came January 2026.
Coordinated mass killings across multiple cities. Targeted extermination of women, youth, and activists. Home raids, neighborhood blockades, mass detentions, and disappearances. The intent was no longer merely to suppress dissent, but to destroy organized resistance as such.
This crosses the legal threshold from crimes against humanity into genocide.
These crimes are not crimes committed by rogue actors. They are policies. They are structural. They are the logical outcome of a system built on ideological absolutism and maintained through terror.
The Islamic Republic has also exported repression beyond Iran’s borders. Early collaboration with the PLO provided training in asymmetric warfare and cell-based operations—methods later absorbed by the IRGC and deployed transnationally. Iranian embassies today function as surveillance and intimidation hubs, targeting dissidents in the diaspora. State terror does not stop at Iran’s borders.
For more than four decades, Iranians have lived under oppression codified in law and enforced through fear. Mothers bury their children. Children grow up behind prison walls. Entire generations are raised under the shadow of violence.
Yet resistance endures.
Women and men defy the regime despite bullets. Youth chant despite gallows. Courage survives where the regime has failed to extinguish it.
The January 2026 massacres were not “crackdowns.” They were genocide. The blood spilled and the lives erased will not disappear into silence. The world faces a choice: complicity through inaction, or accountability through truth and action. Impunity must end. The people of Iran will reclaim their dignity, freedom, and future. History will remember both the courage of the oppressed—and the crimes of their oppressors.