Amnesty report says Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in bloody 2022 protest crackdown

Four years after the death of a young woman whose name became synonymous with the fight for women's rights and freedom in Iran, Amnesty International says the resulting government crackdown was a systemic campaign whose perpetrators continue to evade accountability.

Mahsa Amini was 22 when she died on Sept. 16, 2022, after being arrested by Iran's morality police for "unsuitable attire." 

Wednesday's Amnesty report — a mammoth undertaking drawing on 270 interviews, more than 2,000 videos and extensive documentary evidence — says those same officials continue to lead violent crackdowns now. It identifies dozens of officials allegedly responsible for committing what it describes as crimes against humanity.

Its authors are demanding international action to avoid repeating the same pattern of deadly crackdowns they say has been allowed to continue for years.

"Continued global inaction on international justice sends a very dangerous message to the Iranian authorities. It effectively signals that they can continue to commit crimes against humanity with absolute impunity," Raha Bahreini, Amnesty International's Iran researcher in London, told CBC News.

"This normalization of mass protest killings in Iran must end."

Thousands killed in protests earlier this year

The U.K.-based non-governmental organization lays out the evidence it says constitutes crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, enforced disappearance, imprisonment, rape and persecution on political, gender, ethnic and religious grounds in order to crush the uprising.

While the protests earlier this year were initially triggered by economic grievances over soaring inflation and worsening living conditions rather than the death and rights abuses of women, Amnesty said the pushback reflected the same broader demands for political change and were met by the same security apparatus accused of brutally suppressing the 2022 uprising. 

In the January case, U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had verified 7,007 deaths linked to the protest crackdown.

"The cycles of protest crackdowns in Iran follow a very painful, familiar pattern. They dominate the news headlines for a while, governments issue statements of condemnation, and then attention fades away," Bahreini said.

Minority groups disproportionately targeted, report says

Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman, died three days after she fell into a coma in police custody.

Her Kurdish name Jina (or Zhina), which means "life" in Kurdish, is still used by Kurdish activists and rights groups — represented in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement slogan.

It was the protests sparked by Amini’s death that launched the pattern of unlawful killings that began in Kurdistan province, the Amnesty report says.

It found that Iranian authorities disproportionately targeted Kurdish and Baluchi communities, who largely practice Sunni Islam in a predominantly Shia nation, with "lethal repression."

Both groups reportedly suffered a "devastating share" of deaths in 2022, making up roughly 62 per cent of the total number of known victims despite representing at most 15 per cent of the country's population.

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The findings also come amid armed hostilities, since the U.S. and Israel declared war on Iran at the end of February, with talks currently stalling to end the months-long regional conflict.

While U.S. and Israeli officials have largely justified military action against Iran on security grounds — including its nuclear and missile programs — Amnesty cautioned against using the Iranian government's human rights abuses to legitimize unlawful military attacks.

In July, Trump condemned Iran's leadership after the execution of two protesters, calling officials "savages." 

"Amnesty International unequivocally opposes violations of international law by all parties and rejects any attempt to instrumentalize the suffering of victims of human rights violations in Iran to justify unlawful attacks that inflict further civilian harm," said Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

• Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian police custody, awarded Sakharov human rights prize

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Amnesty said the 2022 protests resulted in the deaths of 377 protesters and bystanders, which includes 56 children.

Most of the deaths recorded were people killed by security forces during protest dispersals between September and December, Amnesty said, while others died in custody, after release from custody — as in Amini’s case — or in "suspicious circumstances suggesting state responsibility."

"Consistent with long-standing patterns of denial and cover-up, the authorities have acknowledged only 202 deaths and falsely attributed most to non-state actors, 'rioters' or 'armed terrorists,' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary," Amnesty said in a release. 

The organization said it shared its findings and the list of officials identified in the report with Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and senior security officials but has not received a response.

Calls for criminal probes into 87 officials

In its report, Amnesty exposes what it describes as the chain of command behind the alleged crimes against humanity, naming a total of 87 officials it wants criminally investigated.

"The list, while not exhaustive, extends from the highest levels of Iran's security apparatus to officials operating at provincial and county level," Amnesty said in a news release.

Of the 87 individuals identified, there are 10 national-level officials and 77 officials at regional, provincial and county levels. 

The report notes that among those identified is the late Supreme Leader and commander-in-chief of all armed forces, Ali Khamenei, and the late head of the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri. Both men were killed in February 2026 in air strikes carried out during the U.S.-Israeli military assault on Iran.

Amnesty International also names Ahmad Vahidi, who was interior minister at the time of the 2022 protests but became the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in March. It also listed former deputy minister of interior for police and security, Majid Mir Ahmadi. 

"This investigation exposes the layers of command and co-ordination behind the Iranian authorities' deadly protest crackdowns," Callamard said.

WATCH | Protests continued a year after Amini's death:

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Spirit of resistance still alive

In spite of the deadly consequences since 2022, Bahreini said civil disobedience is now practiced much more "courageously."

Iran's hijab laws remain legally mandatory for women, but enforcement has varied in the years following the uprising.

"The Woman, Life, Freedom has had major achievements in terms of changing the society's attitude toward obeying discriminatory laws," she said, noting that authorities have concerns over another uprising if the rules are heavily enforced.

"The authorities managed to crush the street protests, but they didn't manage to eliminate the spirit of resistance and defiance."