Iran's 2022 Protest Crackdown: What Amnesty's New Findings Allege
Amnesty International has accused Iranian security forces of the coordinated killing, torture and sexual abuse of hundreds of people in the women-led nationwide protests that began in September 2022, according to findings published on 16 September 2026. The Guardian
The protests followed the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman. She had been arrested by Iran's morality police, the unit that enforces dress rules including hijab, for allegedly not complying. Tens of thousands of people, including children, took to the streets across Iran after her death.
Amnesty cited a leaked Iranian order instructing security forces to respond mercilessly and go as far as causing death. Investigators attributed to that order the scale and consistency of force across provinces, rather than isolated excesses by local units.
A coordinated crackdown
Amnesty said it investigated and verified the deaths of 377 protesters and bystanders, including 56 children. Verification here means cross-checking each death through multiple forms of evidence, a standard method Amnesty has applied in past Iran reports.
The report documents 16 people subjected to rape while arbitrarily detained, meaning held without legal basis, in connection with the uprising. They included six women, seven men, a 14-year-old girl and two boys aged 16 and 17. Amnesty said state agents penetrated women and girls vaginally, anally and orally and penetrated men and boys anally, using wooden and metal batons, glass bottles, hosepipes, sexual organs and fingers.
Amnesty identified 87 Iranian officials, including Ali Khamenei and Mohammad Bagheri, who it said should be investigated over the crackdown. Bagheri, former chief of the general staff of Iran's armed forces, was killed in an airstrike in June 2025.
The broader context here is why Amnesty focused on names at the top. Holding commanders responsible shifts the question from what individual officers did to who planned and ordered it. That is the legal ground where crimes against humanity, meaning widespread or systematic attacks on civilians, and systematic torture are assessed.
Impunity and its aftermath
This is not Amnesty's first intervention. It published "Iran: One year after uprising international community must combat impunity for brutal crackdown" in September 2023, followed by "Iran: Security forces used rape and other sexual violence to crush Woman Life Freedom uprising with impunity" in December 2023, released to mark the 16 Days of Activism campaign. Amnesty International A further update, "Iran: Two years after 'Woman Life Freedom' uprising, impunity for crimes reigns supreme," followed in September 2024.
Criminal punishment after the 2022 protests fell largely on protesters. Iran carried out a first execution over the protests on 8 December 2022, hanging a man convicted of injuring a security guard with a knife and blocking a street in Tehran. Reuters A second execution followed on 12 December 2022, when a man was hanged in public after state media said he was convicted of killing two members of the security forces. On 7 January 2023, Iran hanged Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini for alleged crimes committed during protests linked to the killing of Ruhollah Ajamian. President Ebrahim Raisi vowed on 9 December 2022 to pursue the crackdown after an execution, while a prominent Sunni cleric said a protester death sentence violated sharia law. The use of capital punishment in protest cases continued. Iran executed a man on 6 September 2025 accused of killing a security officer during unrest sparked by Amini's death.
Amnesty separately tracks civilian deaths and violations of international humanitarian law, the rules that limit how wars are fought, during the 12-day armed conflict between Iran and Israel.
Amnesty said impunity, meaning lack of punishment, for the 2022 crackdown paved the way for the January 2026 nationwide protest crackdown in Iran that killed thousands of protesters over 48 hours on 8 and 9 January.
Looking at what this means for diplomacy and law, the report is structured to be usable beyond advocacy. Verified death counts, survivor testimony on sexual violence, a written order on lethal force, and a list of 87 names give external prosecutors and UN mechanisms material that can be tested. Whether that material narrows the space for security cooperation with Tehran, or simply accumulates while repression escalates, will depend on states willing to act on universal jurisdiction, the power of courts to try grave crimes even when committed elsewhere, and targeted sanctions, penalties aimed at specific officials. The January 2026 death toll suggests Amnesty's warning is no longer hypothetical.
