Special Investigative Report Based on Official Admissions by the Regime
Introduction
On May 5, 2025, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the Chief Justice of the ruling regime in Iran, made an unprecedented admission: nearly 90,000 criminal cases were filed during the 2022 nationwide uprising. This acknowledgment not only confirms the regime’s brutal crackdown but also serves as undeniable evidence of the scale and severity of the regime’s crimes against a population demanding freedom. While intended to justify repression, this statement inadvertently exposes the machinery of an orchestrated campaign of state violence.
This report, grounded in this admission and corroborated by other verified evidence, documents the full scope of the regime’s suppression during the 2022 uprising — from mass arrests and torture, to political executions, suspicious deaths in custody, and the systemic harassment of victims’ families.
Mass Arrests: Borderless Repression
Official and independent reports indicate that following the eruption of protests in September 2022, at least 30,000 individuals were arrested. The crackdown was not confined to major cities; protests erupted in over 282 towns and cities across all 31 provinces. Among those arrested, over 40% were children and adolescents under 20 — many kidnapped by security forces from schools or on their way home.
According to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran (March 2025), most of these arrests were arbitrary and involved violence. Detainees were often held in prolonged solitary confinement, denied access to legal counsel or contact with their families.
Arrests extended beyond demonstrators to those who merely expressed solidarity — by posting online, attending memorials, or supporting victims’ families. Teachers, artists, athletes, and even doctors treating the wounded were detained. Many of these arrests lacked judicial warrants and were accompanied by severe physical abuse.
Torture: Institutionalizing Fear
Extensive evidence confirms the systematic use of torture in both official and unofficial detention centers to extract forced confessions, inflict psychological trauma, and instill terror. At least 27,000 individuals, including more than 1,200 children, were subjected to torture and ill-treatment during detention.
Amnesty International’s detailed report from December 2023, titled “Iran: Sexual Violence and Torture as Tools of Repression”, documented techniques including severe beatings, electric shocks, sexual assault, mock executions, forced drug injections, medical neglect, and threats against family members.
Many televised confessions used to justify death sentences were extracted under such torture. Detainees were tried in sham trials, some lasting only minutes, often without legal representation.
Executions as Political Strategy
Documented evidence shows that over 700 people were executed or killed for their involvement in or support for the 2022 protests — among them at least 93 women and 68 minors under 18.
Names such as Mohsen Shekari, Majidreza Rahnavard, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, Jafar Ghorbani, Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaghoubi, Mohammad Ghobadlou, and Omid Alimohammadi are among the executed. These individuals were tried in minutes-long hearings, convicted without access to chosen counsel, based on confessions obtained under torture, and sentenced for charges like “waging war against God” or “corruption on earth.”
According to Amnesty International’s April 2024 report, these executions followed grossly unfair trials. The UN has repeatedly warned about serious violations of fair trial rights and the imminent risk of execution for at least 14 others.
In many cases, families were informed only hours before execution — or not at all. Some were denied information about their loved ones’ burial sites.
Suspicious Deaths: Silencing by Murder
Beyond court-ordered executions, hundreds of detainees died under suspicious circumstances during interrogations or while in custody.
The Iran Human Rights organization reported that authorities often disguised these deaths as suicides, falsified death certificates, and conducted secret nighttime burials to obscure the real causes.
Victims such as Nika Shakarami, Sarina Esmailzadeh, Hadis Najafi, Kian Pirfalak, and Asra Panahi became symbols of these silenced deaths. Families seeking truth were systematically intimidated, detained, or fed misinformation.
According to the Judiciary Commission of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, as of March 2023, at least 3,626 individuals remained forcibly disappeared.
Families: Secondary Targets of Repression
The regime has not only targeted protesters but has also sought vengeance against their families. Parents, siblings, and other relatives of slain protesters have been detained or persecuted merely for seeking truth and justice.
Amnesty International reports that relatives — especially mothers — have been coerced into silence through threats of arrest, desecration of gravesites, bans on memorial services, and repeated summonses by security agencies.
State Institutions: Machinery of Repression
The words of Chief Justice Mohseni-Ejei provide direct evidence that not only security forces, but also judicial institutions, schools, the Basij militia, and religious seminaries were actively involved in the crackdown.
Students were expelled, summoned, or threatened for participating in protests, singing revolutionary songs, or even posting online. Universities witnessed the dismissal of dissenting professors and dissolution of independent student associations. Hundreds of students were suspended or summoned by disciplinary committees.
Contradictory Narratives: Manipulating the Numbers
While Mohseni-Ejei once admitted to 90,000 cases, regime-affiliated media have attempted to downplay the figures. For instance, outlets linked to the Revolutionary Guards claim only 22,000 individuals were pardoned and suggest many cases were dropped without trial.
However, the UN Fact-Finding Mission notes that many of those allegedly “pardoned” were never formally convicted — suggesting the pardons were largely propaganda exercises.
Conclusion
The 2022 uprising stands as a historic national revolt against tyranny — and a damning record of the ruling regime’s systematic violence against its own people. Official admissions, especially the claim of 90,000 criminal cases, are not just statistics but the embodiment of state-inflicted trauma.
The international community must take serious action: initiate investigations, prosecute those responsible, and amplify the Iranian people’s call for justice. This report represents only a fragment of that suppressed cry for freedom.
