António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his new report on the human rights situation in Iran, published on Thursday, 15 October 2026, reported a serious deterioration of human rights and the unprecedented repression of protests, and called on the Islamic Republic to halt executions immediately and to amend its laws and constitution to guarantee fair trials. This is Guterres's last report on Iran before the end of his term at the end of 2026.
The periodic report covers the period from July–August 2025 to 10 May 2026, a period that includes the January uprising, the mass killing of protesters on 8 and 9 January, and the wave of arrests and executions that followed.
The dead and detained of the January uprising
The report says the Islamic Republic put the number of those killed on 8 and 9 January at 3,117, but HRANA had recorded more than 7,007 dead protesters by 23 February, including 236 children, with about 11,700 further cases still under review. The UN has not independently confirmed these figures.
According to the UN Secretary-General, at least 53,777 people were arrested in connection with the protests between 25 December 2025 and 15 February. The report also describes raids by security forces on medical centres in at least 14 provinces and a 20-day nationwide internet shutdown during the protests; the second internet shutdown, which began on 28 February, is according to the report the longest recorded internet shutdown in the world.
Execution figures in Iran
According to the report, at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran in 2025, nearly half of them on drug-related charges, and another 151 executions were reported in the first three months of 2026. Between 1 January 2026 and 10 May 2026, at least 14 protesters were executed and at least 40 people were sentenced to death; at the time the report was written, at least 53 people were at risk of execution on protest-related charges. The execution of protesters has continued after this period as well; Amnesty International called the execution of five January-uprising protesters in one week a tool of intimidation.
The UN Secretary-General's demands
Guterres called for an immediate halt to executions, the release of all arbitrarily detained people, access for defendants to a lawyer of their choice at all stages, even in security cases, and a prompt, transparent and independent investigation into the excessive use of force, deaths in custody and torture. He also asked other countries to support accountability for the perpetrators through independent courts and to include human rights concerns in their diplomatic and economic relations with the Islamic Republic.
The report recalls that the Islamic Republic continues to bar the UN Special Rapporteur and the fact-finding mission from entering Iran. The report also addresses the war and the cross-border attacks in the region. Earlier, Amnesty International had shown that immunity for the agents who killed protesters is entrenched in the Islamic Republic's law.
In his latest report, the UN Secretary-General called for an immediate halt to executions and the release of detainees, citing unprecedented repression in Iran.
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