The report, published on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, states that Iranian intelligence agencies and security forces arrested tens of thousands of people — including children — from December 28, 2025, following the nationwide killings on January 8 and 9, 2026, and in the period afterward.
According to the report, Iranian authorities have subjected detainees to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, leaving them at serious risk of death in custody, grossly unfair trials, and secret, expedited, and arbitrary executions.
The report calls on United Nations member states to urge Iranian authorities to immediately release all individuals arbitrarily detained, disclose the fate and whereabouts of those forcibly disappeared, halt any planned executions, and grant unrestricted access to independent international bodies and monitors — especially the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran — to the country, including all prisons and detention facilities.
Human Rights Watch also urged judicial authorities in other countries to open criminal investigations, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
The report further states that governments maintaining embassies in Iran should send senior observers to all court sessions related to death penalty cases and immediately request access to all sections of detention centers.
According to the organization, following the nationwide killings of protesters and bystanders by security forces on January 8 and 9, 2026, the Islamic Republic launched a ruthless campaign of intimidation through mass arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances.
Evidence reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicates that senior officials, security and intelligence bodies — including the national police (FARAJA), the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its intelligence arm, the Ministry of Intelligence, as well as prosecutorial and judicial authorities — coordinated a violent crackdown aimed at suppressing further protests and concealing their actions.
The report adds that, in addition to mass arrests, detainees have been held incommunicado in unofficial facilities, hundreds of forced “confessions” — including from children — have been broadcast on state television, and widespread enforced disappearances of protesters have taken place.
