Iran: UN expands Fact-Finding Mission’s mandate in landmark development to address human rights crisis
Responding to today’s adoption of a landmark resolution at the UN Human Rights Council, which extended and broadened the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, originally established in November 2022 during the Woman Life Freedom protests, Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International said:
“The extension of the mandates of both the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran and the Fact-Finding Mission, along with the expansion of the latter’s mandate, is a critical, long-awaited response to the persistent demands for justice from survivors, victims’ families and human rights defenders in Iran and in exile. Crucially, by no longer being limited to the 2022 Woman Life Freedom protests, the Mission can now investigate other recent or ongoing serious human rights violations and crimes under international law, ensuring that international scrutiny is not confined to a single chapter of repression, but that it addresses continuous patterns of serious violations.”
In its March 2024 and March 2025 reports to the UN Human Rights Council, the Fact-Finding Mission found that “the Iranian authorities committed gross human rights violations in the context of the [Woman Life Freedom] protests, many of which amount to the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts, committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population, namely women, girls and others expressing support for human rights, including ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ persons.
