Urgent Protection Needed: Tens of Thousands of Iranian Protest Detainees Face Life-Threatening Crisis

Tens of thousands detained in Iran protests since late December 2025 face torture, secret detention, and life risks.

Iran Human Rights Society, Friday, January 16, 2026 – Following the extensive, unprecedented, and organized wave of arrests coinciding with the recent protests in Iran, the situation of the detainees has reached a critical, alarming, and emergency level. Evidence, reports, and data collected from various sources indicate that the lives and physical and mental health of tens of thousands of detained citizens are directly and continuously at serious risk. The continuation of these conditions not only poses an immediate threat to the lives and human dignity of the detainees but also represents systematic, widespread, and structural violations of fundamental human rights, highlighting more than ever the necessity for an immediate, responsible, coordinated, and effective response from the international community.

Tens of thousands detained in two weeks; a hidden human crisis

The detention of tens of thousands of individuals in a short time frame has led to the formation of a hidden, extensive, and multi-layered human crisis. According to field reports, data collected from independent sources, testimonies from families, and information received from human rights activists, between December 31, 2025 and January 14, 2026, tens of thousands of people have been arrested during the protests. This volume of arrests in such a short period is a clear sign of a comprehensive repression policy.

A significant portion of these individuals are being held in unofficial, temporary, or secret detention centers, and the identity information of many of them has not been recorded in any official judicial or administrative registration system. This situation has effectively deprived detainees of legal protections, effective judicial oversight, fair trial guarantees, and the possibility for families to follow up on their situation, significantly increasing the risk of severe, ongoing, and irreparable violations of their rights.

Tens of Thousands Arrested in Just Two Weeks

Mass arrests occurred between December 31, 2025, and January 14, 2026. Independent reports confirm the huge scale of detentions. Families and activists struggle to find information. Many people simply disappeared after protests. This rapid wave creates a hidden humanitarian disaster.

Authorities use unofficial detention centers widely. These facilities operate outside normal registration systems. Detainees lose basic legal protections completely. No official records exist for thousands of people. Such conditions increase risks of serious abuse.

Denial of the right to counsel and widespread, ongoing violations of fair trial principles

Detainees from the recent protests are not only deprived of the fundamental right to access a lawyer but also lack basic fair trial guarantees, including precise information about the charges, awareness of their legal status, access to an independent judicial authority, and the possibility of regular, safe, and pressure-free communication with their families. These deprivations, combined with the absence of independent and impartial monitoring mechanisms, have created conditions that significantly increase the risk of serious physical and psychological harm, forced confessions, unjust verdicts, and widespread violations of the right to defense.

Judicial discourse and legitimization of organized violence

Public statements by some judicial and security officials, including emphasis on “this time we will show no mercy,” indicate the adoption of an approach based on maximum, relentless, and disregard-for-legal-standards repression by the responsible institutions. Such discourse, both implicitly and explicitly, paves the way for violence without effective legal accountability and conveys to security forces and interrogators the message that they can resort to the most severe forms of treatment without fear of prosecution. The direct consequence of this approach is a dramatic increase in the risk of death in custody, targeted killings, forced suicides, and hidden executions of detainees from the nationwide protests.

It must be explicitly emphasized that the detainees are primarily arrested for participating in peaceful protests and expressing their social and political demands, not for committing violent acts. Peaceful protest is one of the fundamental rights recognized in international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Suppressing this right under vague and general concepts of internal security lacks legal legitimacy. This repression is clearly political in nature, and its main objective is to restrict, intimidate, socially control, and silence collective action and civil protest.

Call to international human rights mechanisms and monitoring bodies

In this context, an urgent, explicit, and responsible call is issued to international human rights mechanisms, including the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteurs, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other independent human rights organizations, to prevent the continuation and escalation of this human crisis through effective political, legal, diplomatic, and media pressure, as well as the establishment of direct and continuous monitoring.

The necessity of implementing the Responsibility to Protect principle

The United Nations holds special responsibility here. The Human Rights Council can address this crisis urgently. Special Rapporteurs need immediate access to facilities. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch document violations. These organizations provide reliable evidence consistently.

The Responsibility to Protect principle applies clearly. States must prevent serious harm to civilians. Domestic remedies fail completely in this situation. International action becomes necessary and justified. Delay allows further suffering and possible deaths.

Immediate and specific demands

In this regard, the immediate, practical, and verifiable realization of the following urgent measures is essential:

Official, transparent, and complete disclosure of all detention centers and holding facilities, including prisons and secret detention centers
Official, accurate, comprehensive, and verifiable registration of the names and details of all detainees in accessible systems
Immediate transfer of injured, sick, or at-risk detainees to independent, specialized medical centers outside the control of security institutions
Effective, ongoing, and unhindered guarantee of access to a lawyer, regular family contact, and appropriate medical services
Provision of continuous, free, and unhindered access for international monitoring bodies, fact-finding missions, and special rapporteurs to detention facilities
Independent, impartial, and effective monitoring of interrogation processes, judicial proceedings, and detention conditions

The crisis of detainees; an issue beyond national and domestic borders

The situation of detainees from the recent protests is not merely an internal or security matter but a serious human rights crisis with far-reaching human, social, legal, and political consequences at the regional and international levels. The continuation of this situation can have long-term and destructive effects on society, the rule of law, and human security. Silence, inaction, or minimal reactions from the international community can be interpreted as turning a blind eye to the continuation of torture, enforced disappearance, and the death of detainees, carrying heavy moral and legal responsibility.

This call is an urgent demand for effective, coordinated, multilateral, and immediate action. Any delay or hesitation could cost the lives of individuals who are currently enduring conditions of uncertainty, structural violence, legal deprivation, and complete vulnerability in detention and require urgent, real, and tangible support from the global community.

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