What’s happening in Iran right now isn’t just another geopolitical issue. At its heart, it’s a long-standing human rights crisis—one that’s been glaringly obvious for years but has been largely ignored.

The clerical regime does not really hide what it is. It doesn’t need to. The scale of its actions is too vast for secrecy. Instead, it does something more insidious: it normalizes them. State violence is cloaked in religious language. Arbitrary detention is reframed as national security. The execution of dissidents and minorities is presented as the preservation of order.

Even by the standards of authoritarian regimes, the statistics are shocking. In 2025, over 2,000 individuals were executed—the highest number we’ve seen since the brutal crackdowns of the 1980s. Many of these people were convicted of drug-related crimes that don’t even come close to qualifying as “most serious crimes” under international law. Others faced charges so vague they seem almost unbelievable—like “enmity against God,” “armed rebellion,” or “spreading corruption on earth.” Cases zip through Revolutionary Courts in mere minutes. Confessions obtained through torture are taken at face value, and access to legal representation is often denied.

This is not a justice system that has veered off course. It is one functioning exactly as designed.

So when protests erupted in late 2025—sparked by economic collapse, soaring inflation, water shortages, and years of pent-up frustration—the response was swift and brutal. Security forces fired live ammunition into crowds. Shotguns loaded with metal pellets were aimed at heads and chests. Snipers were deployed. Hospitals were not spared; they were stormed, with wounded protesters and even medical staff beaten. Families were pressured into silence, forced to bury their children quickly and to sign statements claiming their deaths were accidents.

By early 2026, the death toll had........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)