On the brutal repression against protesters in Iran

B100069/2026

European Parliament resolution on the brutal repression against protesters in Iran

(2026/2565(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the Charter of the United Nations,

– having regard to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Iran,

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

– having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,

– having regard to UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) on Iran Nuclear Issue,

– having regard to the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas since 28 December 2025, a wave of nationwide protests has engulfed the Islamic Republic of Iran;

B. whereas the protests initially started as a response to the collapse of the Iranian currency against the dollar, and discontent of merchants whose activities and profits were threatened, including by government economic reform;

C. whereas strike actions had been under way previously, for example, by drivers and workers in the oil industry;

D. whereas these protests quickly broadened, expressing widespread discontent and criticism of the government, political repression and corruption;

E. whereas on 8 January 2026, the Iranian authorities responded to the unrest by shutting down the internet before launching a violent crackdown involving mass arrests and the use of deadly force;

F. whereas the Islamic Republic concentrates political and religious authority in the hands of a number of parallel institutions thereby undermining the republic’s democratic institutions;

G. whereas the Islamic Republic has a long-standing record of systematic repression, including arbitrary arrests, executions, censorship and violent crackdowns on peaceful protests, particularly against women, students, workers and human rights defenders;

H. whereas the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association is protected by Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

I. whereas UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that he was shocked by reports of violence and excessive use of force by the Iranian authorities against protesters in multiple locations;

J. whereas seven UN human rights experts called upon the Iranian authorities to break the cycle of violence, respect the people’s fundamental right to be able to voice dissent and participate in peaceful protests without fear of reprisals, and address the people’s demands regarding civil, political, economic and cultural rights;

K. whereas the internet shutdown greatly complicated access to reliable sources and information on the extent of human rights violations on the ground;

L. whereas nevertheless even Iran’s Supreme Leader has now admitted ‘thousands of deaths’, and a US-based human rights group reported at least 3 090 confirmed deaths, including 2 885 protesters, 165 members of government security forces, and 21 non-protesting civilians; whereas recent reports by Reuters suggest that at least 4 500 protesters have been killed by state security forces;

M. whereas widespread protests were also sparked off in 2017 by the government’s economic policies; whereas in 2019 nationwide civil protests were triggered by a 50 to 200 % increase in fuel prices;

N. whereas the 2009 Green Movement contested the presidential election results and demanded democratic reforms, women’s rights and human rights, but was repressed;

O. whereas the latest protests therefore seem to be part of a longer history of social and political struggles by the Iranian people;

P. whereas protests in recent years, notably those following the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, have shown the power of social movements and their ability to achieve results and bring about change in Iran;

Q. whereas the 2024 report of a UN fact-finding mission stated that the state bore responsibility for the unlawful death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022 after being arrested for allegedly wearing ‘improper’ hijab which triggered the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement that brought to the fore demands to eliminate entrenched discrimination against women and girls, embodied by the country’s legislation on the mandatory hijab laws;

R. whereas the widespread ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement resulted, for example, in the Iranian Government’s announcing the abolition of the Guidance Patrol, also known as the morality police, and a reduction in the physical monitoring and enforcement of dress code provisions, notably in large cities; whereas while no legislative measure has been adopted to formally repeal the requirement, the mandatory wearing of the veil is in many places no longer enforced;

S. whereas there can be no doubt about the legitimacy of the genuine grievances of the Iranian people and their struggle for civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, and their right to peaceful assembly and protest;

T. whereas Israeli authorities, including government officials and the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad, have claimed to be on the streets of Iran with the protesters; whereas former CIA Director and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to confirm these assertions; whereas claims of Israeli activity in Iran are further corroborated by the infiltration by Mossad of Iranian state institutions disclosed after the June 2025 Israeli attacks on Iran;

U. whereas Israeli television Channel 14 reported that foreign actors were arming the protestors in Iran with live firearms, claiming this was the reason for ‘hundreds of regime personnel’ being killed; whereas the Financial Times similarly reported testimonies of demonstrators and witnesses speaking of groups of men in black clothes ‘looking like commandos’;

V. whereas in October 2025, the Israeli paper Haaretz uncovered an Israeli digital influence operation using fake accounts and AI-generated content to Install Reza Pahlavi as king of Iran; whereas Iran under the monarchy was not a democratic state, but a dictatorship notorious for the use of torture by the Savak secret police;

W. whereas Israeli and US media have openly discussed options to ‘fracture’ or ‘break up’ Iran geographically along ethnic lines;

X. whereas any such foreign interference is at odds with the UN Charter, which prohibits interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign nations, and an unacceptable attempt to hijack legitimate popular protests and undermine their peaceful character;

Y. whereas Israel has systematically violated human rights and international law, in particular the Genocide Convention, throughout the region;

Z. whereas foreign intervention and attempts at foreign-sponsored regime change have created millions of casualties throughout the Middle East, creating chaos and destruction notably in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, without bringing about social and democratic improvements; whereas US and Israeli intervention in Syria and Lebanon has consistently undermined sovereignty, territorial integrity and basic human rights;

AA. whereas public statements by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court, on the situation in Iran are particularly sensitive in the Iranian context, given Iran’s long collective memory of foreign interference in its domestic politics, including the 1953 coup reimposing the dictatorship of the Shah on the Iranian people, as well as the long-standing confrontation with the United States and Israel; whereas the Iranian authorities eagerly use these statements to portray protest movements as foreign-guided terrorism in an attempt to justify repression;

AB. whereas the European Commission, European governments and mainstream political forces refused to condemn the killing of over 1 000 Iranians, including children, by Israel in June 2025, but have now strongly condemned the Iranian authorities’ repression stating they ‘stand with the Iranian people’;

AC. whereas, however, recent European policy initiatives on Iran have not shown similar concern for human rights as they mostly focused on sanctions, while back in 2022 the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights delivered at the 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council concluded that sanctions and various forms of over-compliance had a serious negative impact on Iran’s economy with an adverse effect on the broad spectrum of human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural – including the right to life and the right to development of the Iranian people;

AD. whereas prior to the 2011 tightening of US sanctions, Iran experienced years of economic growth, with rising living standards and a substantial expansion of its middle class from the 1990s onwards, growing from approximately 15 % of the population in 1979 to over half of Iranian society by 2011;

AE. whereas between 2011 and 2019 up to an estimated nine million people lost their middle-class status; whereas in parallel poverty rates have at least doubled in both urban and rural areas;

AF. whereas sanctions have complicated infrastructure investment in crucial development sectors such as electricity, heating or drinking water;

AG. whereas, additionally, a growing body of scientific literature has found strong evidence that economic sanctions have significantly restricted the Iranian people’s access to medicines for non-communicable diseases, with dramatic impacts documented specifically for cancer patients, including for radiotherapy treatment, as well as for asthma, thalassaemia and haemophilia patients;

AH. whereas the media have also reported insulin and thyroid pill shortages and previous rounds of sanctions even saw a 14-fold price increase for dietary formula for infants with food allergies;

AI. whereas although following UN Security Council Resolution 1929 (2010), the EU aligned with US sanctions on Iran, Member States historically seemed to recognise the counterproductive impact of sanctions by refusing the 1995 US Trade Ban, and adopting the 1996 Blocking Statute to counter US extraterritorial sanctions for European companies doing business with Iran;

AJ. whereas in 2018, the EU even updated the Blocking Statute in response to the reimposition of sanctions by the United States after the Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran; whereas in 2019 France, Germany and the United Kingdom launched the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran; whereas these measures failed to meaningfully counter US sanction regimes and their impact on the lives of the Iranian people;

AK. whereas in 2025, France, Germany and the United Kingdom took the initiative to activate a snap-back mechanism allowing for the reimposition of many sanctions, including restrictions on goods, technology, and financial services, as well as asset freezes and restrictions on Iran;

AL. whereas subsequent to the imposition of sanctions the price of basic goods in Iran soared, with food prices increasing by 50 to 72 % last year; while Iran’s national currency has lost two-thirds of its value over the past three years with a sharp acceleration in 2025;

AM. whereas sanctions have similarly increased real and perceived inequalities, notably between the rich and the rest of society; whereas recent research has also shown that sanctions not only disproportionately hit the poorest segments of society, but also punished the Iranian middle classes which are credited by liberal-democratic theory for pushing for reforms and change;

AN. whereas many academic studies note that sanctions, and specifically US President Trump’s maximum sanctions pressure imposed since 2017, have severely contracted not only crude oil sales, but also political space in Iran, weakening civil society and the popularity of reformist politicians, while strengthening the hardline right wing and reinforcing both the militarisation of the economy and even the economic power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), controlling imports, managing currency exchanges, and monopolising access to restricted goods, to the detriment of independent businesses;

AO. whereas while in 2017 the United States also labelled the IRGC a foreign terrorist organisation and made it arguably the most-sanctioned entity on the US Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, US maximum sanctions pressure has had the effect of reinforcing the mentality and rhetoric of siege and accelerated the securitisation of Iranian political culture;

AP. whereas the US labelling Iran a member of the Axis of Evil in 2003 notwithstanding Iran-US cooperation on Afghanistan, as well as the unilateral US withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, both happened while Iran was governed by presidents open to cooperation with the West which in turn contributed to discrediting more moderate and reformist factions, while empowering the more conservative factions;

AQ. whereas US President Donald Trump has threatened renewed military strikes against Iran; whereas many countries in the region oppose any such attack and instead are calling for diplomatic outreach between Iranian and American officials;

AR. whereas several countries fear a massive influx of refugees in the event of war or regime change operations against Iran; whereas other countries fear Iranian retaliation against US bases on their territory;

AS. whereas international law prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, as laid down in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and as a fundamental principle of customary international law; whereas any departure from this prohibition is strictly limited, including in exceptional humanitarian circumstances and only under a clear mandate and with prior authorisation by the UN Security Council;

1. Strongly condemns the killing of peaceful protestors, the deliberate use of violence, arbitrary detention, and intimidation tactics by security forces;

2. Stands with the Iranian people in their legitimate struggle for their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and an international order in line with the UN Charter; condemns all forms of intolerance, hostility and use of force against persons or groups of persons on the grounds of racial, religious, cultural, sexual, social, ethnic or national differences;

3. Expresses its heartfelt condolences to the families of all victims; calls on the Iranian authorities to cease the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, and instead to address their legitimate concerns;

4. Firmly condemns the rise in the use of the death penalty, or the threat thereof, especially with regard to peaceful demonstrators; reiterates its strong opposition to the use of the death penalty worldwide and calls for the introduction of a moratorium as a first step towards the abolition of capital punishment;

5. Calls for prompt, independent and transparent investigations into the violence and killings, and for those responsible for unlawful killings to be brought to justice; calls also for an independent inquiry into other reported human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and attacks on medical facilities;

6. Supports the unconditional release of all individuals detained solely for exercising their rights to free expression, peaceful protest or civil disobedience;

7. Highlights the importance of internet and telephone services permitting free exchange of information and independent reporting; calls on the Iranian Government to restore access to the internet and for the EU to help restore internet access;

8. Recalls Iran’s international human rights obligations, including the respect for the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and the right to life, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international treaties to which Iran is a party; calls for the EU to further support humanitarian organisations in Iran;

9. Urges the UN Human Rights Council to strengthen independent investigative mechanisms and calls on all relevant international accountability bodies to act in line with their mandates; stresses that findings and recommendations must be public, transparent and protected from political interference;

10. Supports the Iranian people’s right to decide their political future free from coercion and foreign interference, and reaffirms its support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran as a member state of the United Nations;

11. Opposes attempts, notably by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to instrumentalise or hijack the legitimate demands and anger of the Iranian people;

12. Reiterates the principle of non-intervention and the prohibition of the threat or use of force under international law; calls on all external actors, in particular the United States and Israel, to refrain from actions or statements that constitute interference and to instead support accountability for human rights violations through multilateral UN-based mechanisms;

13. Firmly condemns any threat or use of force in violation of the basic principles of international law, and in particular the UN Charter; stresses that recent experiences prove that Western military interventions bring neither democracy nor human rights, but chaos and mass casualties;

14. Recalls that in 1953 Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup after nationalising Iran’s oil industry, an intervention that dismantled Iran’s democratic institutions and restored authoritarian rule;

15. Reaffirms that the choice of its political leadership and institutional arrangements belongs solely to the Iranian people; underlines that it is not for the EU to endorse, promote or favour any particular opposition figure or candidate, nor to attempt to shape Iran’s political future from outside;

16. Calls for free, fair and transparent democratic participation, in full respect of international human rights standards and the will of the Iranian people;

17. Expresses deep concern at the impact of sanctions against Iran on the Iranian people and Iranian society; stresses that such measures primarily affect the civilian population, exacerbating economic hardship, causing medicine shortages, weakening civil society, and fostering increased militarisation of Iranian society;

18. Calls, in line with the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral sanctions, for the immediate lifting of those European sanctions on Iran that have a negative impact on the human rights and living conditions of the Iranian people; calls also for the reactivation of EU mechanisms allowing US sanctions to be circumvented;

19. Condemns the US suspension of immigrant visas for Iranians in the midst of a crackdown; calls for the EU and its Member States to strengthen safe pathways and protection for those at risk, including asylum, medical care and legal support for refugees;

20. Deplores the continued lack of an explicit EU condemnation of Israeli strikes on Iran in June 2025, which killed civilians, including children, and hit civilian sites, including Tehran’s Evin prison; calls for the EU to apply international law consistently, oppose attacks on civilians regardless of the perpetrator, and to support independent, prompt and effective investigations and accountability;

21. Stresses that further isolating Iran at global level could have detrimental consequences, such as strengthening hardliners, further degrading women’s rights, and contributing to nuclear proliferation;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, and the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.