By Maryam Fakhar
For the people of Iran in January 2026, the world did not end with an explosion; it ended with a “Click.” That was the sound of a nation being unplugged. As digital communications were severed across the Iranian plateau, 85 million people were cast into absolute isolation—a state where the monitoring tools of the modern era were disabled, allowing the regime to complete its atrocities in the absence of the world’s eyes and ears and amidst absolute international ignorance. For the Tehran regime, the internet blackout was not a technical necessity; it was a “Lethal Cloak” used to not only suppress protests but to purge a generation in the shadows.
Anatomy of a Crime in Silence
Human rights monitors are now gathering and documenting scattered reports that have barely breached the walls of censorship to paint a true picture of this horror. These documents reveal that what occurred was not merely a street crackdown, but a systematic “Extermination.” In Tehran’s hospitals, the regime’s savage hunters preyed upon wounded protesters, either executing them with a final shot right in their hospital beds or abducting them. At Farabi Eye Hospital, Iranian youths arrived in waves, their eyes—the windows of their defiance—shattered by direct fire. This was a deliberate policy for the “Permanent Disablement of Society.” To blind a protester is to paralyze the engine of the uprising while keeping the individual alive as a walking “exemplary lesson” for others.
The Corridor of No Return
The true horror began when the gunfire in the streets ceased. As the pavement was washed of blood, the “Killing Protocol” moved into the shadows. From January 18 to 21, hospitals were transformed into hunting grounds. Security forces did not come to save the lives of the wounded; they came to abduct and kill.
Think of the ambulance driver in Ahvaz, forced to witness the mass burial of unidentified bodies in the night. Think of the families in Babol, who heard faint moans from inside body bags and were met with the horrifying response from officers: “We have orders to let them stay here until they die.” This is “Torture by Omission”, the deliberate deprivation of the right to life that turned medical centers into slaughterhouses. In Kermanshah, we speak of “Mutilation,” where the joints of detainees were drilled before a final shot to the head; where these criminals harvested the organs of the wounded or the dead for sale. Neither the human brain nor the heart can fathom such depths of depravity and crime. These are flagrant manifestations of “Crimes Against Humanity.”
Prisons as Slaughterhouses
As the suppression shifted behind walls, Lakan, Dastgerd, Vakilabad, and other official and secret detention centers became focal points for the continuation of this crime. More than 50,000 people have been detained nationwide. This vast population is suspended in a “Legal Limbo.” By refusing to register names in official databases, the regime is implementing a protocol of “Enforced Disappearance.” When someone is not officially recorded in a cell, they can be tortured to the brink of insanity, to death, or executed “extrajudicially,” in silence, and without a trace.
As Eje’i, Ahmad Khatami, and other officials speak of “exemplary punishment” and “maximum penalties” for leaders, the roadmap for a new massacre is being drawn—a reconstruction of the 1988 catastrophe on an even more lethal and far broader scale.
The Test of the “Free” World
The question is no longer “What is happening in Iran?” The question is “What are we doing in the face of these crimes?”
The United Nations and the international community can no longer claim ignorance. The warnings from Special Rapporteur Mai Sato and the available documented data have left no room for doubt. According to Article 16 of the “Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts,” silence and inaction in the face of an established crime amount to “Complicity” in that crime—and who would want to dip their hands in such blood?
A Call to Action: Accountability for the Bloodthirsty Regime
The martyrs of January gave their lives for the right to “Life with Dignity.” The child standing in the street, raising two fingers in a victory sign, does not ask for our pity; he demands accountability for this bloodthirsty regime. He demands immediate intervention, criminal responsibility, and an end to this regime’s impunity:
- Immediate Intervention: The establishment of an independent international commission of inquiry for unconditional visits to all prisons, detention centers, safe houses, and secret facilities of the regime.
- Criminal Responsibility: Prosecution of the architects of this massacre in international courts based on the principle of Universal Jurisdiction.
- Ending Impunity: Expulsion of this regime’s representatives from human rights assemblies.
The countdown is moving in the cells of Lakan, Vakilabad, and other prisons, detention centers, and safe houses. This is the heartbeat of thousands of young people standing one step away from the gallows or facing torture until recantation or death. If we do not act today, tomorrow we will only be measuring the extent of mass graves, while bearing the guilt that we did nothing to stop it.
Do not let the silence of the world be the final sound of a generation. Be the voice of this nation and hold the executioners accountable; do not allow international passivity to become a formal license for this regime to complete its crime against humanity. Stand up and stop these criminals before they finish their work.
