Amnesty International: Impunity for the killers of 2022 protesters is entrenched in the Islamic Republic's laws and courts

In one section of its comprehensive report on the crackdown on the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising, Amnesty International has shown that the Islamic Republic has entrenched impunity for agents who killed protesters in its laws and judicial structure. According to the organization, official denial, the firearms law, trials in military courts affiliated with the armed forces, and state investigative committees are the four pillars of this impunity.

These findings are part of the report "Architects of Crime", which Amnesty International published in August–September 2026. The report, of more than a thousand pages, calls the crackdown on the 2022 uprising a crime against humanity, documents the killing of 377 protesters and bystanders, including 56 children, between September and December 2022, and names 87 Islamic Republic officials for judicial investigation.

The firearms law and military courts: agents judge themselves

According to Amnesty International, the firearms law allows agents to shoot at a gathering deemed "illegal" after a warning and once other methods have failed; a standard far from international standards, which permit shooting only in the face of an imminent threat of death or serious injury. An agent whose shooting is deemed "lawful" is exempt from criminal and civil liability, and even the blood money (diya) for the victims is paid by the security body, not by the agent himself. The same law punishes an agent who refuses to shoot.

The cases of protesters who died from agents' gunfire go to the Armed Forces Judiciary Organization, where, on the order of the Islamic Republic's leader, at least half of the judges, prosecutors and staff must come from the armed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the police (FARAJA). First, a committee inside the very same force examines whether the shooting was "in accordance with the law", and the military prosecutor's office and military court rely on that same view.

Ten cases in eight provinces: from a retribution sentence to 10 months in prison

Amnesty International examined ten cases of protesters' deaths in eight provinces. Four cases were closed under the label "insufficient evidence". In two cases, the authorities accepted that the fatal shot was fired by agents, but halted the criminal investigation. In the other cases, the sentences issued were overturned, reduced or converted into payment of blood money.

In the case of Mohammad Jamebozorg, who was shot at close range in Malard in September 2022, a Basij member was first sentenced to retribution (qisas); but after a request from Hossein Salami, then commander of the IRGC, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, head of the judiciary, did not consider the killing intentional, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict, and the shooter was sentenced to three years in prison. The IRGC paid the blood money.

In the case of Sepehr Beyranvand in Khorramabad, the Supreme Court twice overturned the death sentence of a police officer, and he was ultimately acquitted of murder and sentenced to 10 months in prison for "unauthorized shooting"; this despite the earlier court having cited CCTV footage showing that he deliberately aimed at Sepehr as he was fleeing.

Hand-picked "fact-finding" committees versus the United Nations

According to Amnesty International, Ahmad Vahidi, then interior minister, announced the creation of an internal committee in November 2022, two days before the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish an independent fact-finding mission, and Ebrahim Raisi created another special committee in May–June 2023, whose mandate Masoud Pezeshkian extended. The Islamic Republic repeatedly cited these committees to refuse cooperation with the United Nations.

Amnesty International called these committees lacking in independence and impartiality. Of their 110-page main report, more than two-thirds is devoted to attacking foreign governments, media and platforms, only 15 pages address human rights violations and about half a page addresses the deaths of protesters, and parts of it were copied word for word from the joint statement of the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization.

Amnesty International had previously said that this same impunity paved the way for the far bloodier massacre during the December 2025–January 2026 uprising, and this week it called the execution of five protesters from that uprising a tool of intimidation; a pattern also seen in cases such as the deaths of Ahmadreza and Amirhossein Feyzi in Fardis, Karaj. The organization has called on the Security Council to refer the situation in Iran to the International Criminal Court and to establish an international mechanism to try those responsible.

According to Amnesty International, in Iran an agent who kills a protester is tried in a court where half the judges are his own colleagues.