By any legal or diplomatic measure, the accounts emerging from Tehran of hundreds of gunshot eye injuries treated in a single hospital represent one of the gravest allegations of state violence against civilians in the modern Middle East. According to testimony from three doctors whose statements were forwarded to the Guardian, more than 400 protesters with gunshot wounds to the eyes were documented by one ophthalmologist alone, amid a nationwide crackdown on demonstrations that began on 28 December following a sharp collapse in the value of Iran’s currency.
If verified, these events would not merely constitute excessive use of force. They would engage the highest thresholds of international criminal law, potentially amounting to crimes against humanity, grave violations of international human rights law, and serious breaches of Iran’s own domestic legal framework.
The legal gravity of the allegations is heightened by consistent claims from medical professionals that security forces are deliberately targeting the eyes and heads of protesters, echoing documented practices during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests. Doctors report that numerous patients have undergone eye removal surgery and suffered permanent blindness. Others have allegedly been struck by birdshot pellets and live ammunition, sometimes with dozens of pellets embedded in a single body.
These are not isolated injuries. According to the US based Human Rights Activists News Agency, more than 2,000 people have been killed during the protests, with over 90 percent identified as demonstrators, and more than 16,700 arrested. The death toll, the article states, is already four times higher than that recorded during the months long 2022 Mahsa Amini protests.
Hospitals are described as overwhelmed, with doctors treating patients outdoors in freezing conditions due to lack of space, shortages of blood and medical supplies, and repeated incursions by security forces to arrest wounded protesters. One doctor was reportedly shot while travelling to his hospital.
From a legal perspective, these facts, if substantiated, raise immediate questions under multiple binding international treaties to which Iran is a party.
The binding legal framework governing Iran’s conduct
Iran is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified in 1975. Under Article 6, the right to life is non derogable even in times of public emergency. Article 7 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Article 9 protects against arbitrary arrest and detention. Article 21 protects the right of peaceful assembly.
The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, although not a treaty, represent authoritative interpretation of these rights. They strictly prohibit the intentional use of lethal force except when strictly unavoidable to protect life. Targeting the head or eyes of protesters, even with so called less lethal weapons, is categorically incompatible with these principles.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and multiple special rapporteurs have , at multiple instances, outlines that firing pellet guns or shotguns at the face results in a form of intentional maiming. In international jurisprudence, deliberate blinding has long been recognised as a form of torture when carried out by state agents.
Iran is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The article references at least one young girl in critical condition after being shot in the pelvic area. The use of firearms against children in crowd control contexts is an unequivocal violation of Articles 6, 19 and 37 of that convention.
Furthermore, systematic targeting of a civilian population on political grounds may fall within the definition of crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. These include murder, imprisonment, torture, persecution and other inhumane acts causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.
Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute. However, this does not remove criminal liability under international law. Jurisdiction could theoretically be established through a referral by the United Nations Security Council, or through universal jurisdiction prosecutions in foreign courts, as has occurred in cases involving Syria and other conflict zones.
What distinguishes the present allegations from many prior crackdowns is the reported consistency of injuries to the eyes and head. Medical staff described wounds that led them to conclude the targeting was intentional, not incidental. Rights groups echoed this conclusion, stating that even when less lethal weapons are deployed, they are allegedly aimed at vital organs to cause permanent disability and terror.
The spokesperson from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights characterised this as systematic mutilation. In legal terms, this language is not rhetorical. Under the Convention against Torture, to which Iran is also a party, the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering for purposes of punishment, intimidation or coercion by a public official constitutes torture.
Blinding is explicitly recognised by international criminal tribunals as a form of severe physical and mental suffering. The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, particularly in the Celebici and Kunarac cases, establishes that permanent physical injury inflicted deliberately meets the threshold for torture.
If state forces are intentionally firing at eyes to disable protesters, this would satisfy the elements of both torture and persecution on political grounds.
The reported nationwide shutdown of internet and mobile access on Thursday night introduces an additional layer of legal concern. While states may restrict communications in limited circumstances, international law requires such measures to be lawful, necessary, proportionate and non discriminatory.
A complete communications blackout during a violent crackdown raises strong inferences of intent to conceal violations and obstruct documentation. Doctors stated that injuries surged immediately after the blackout, and that they were unable to coordinate with colleagues or emergency services.
From an international legal standpoint, obstruction of access to information during mass violence can itself constitute evidence of mens rea, the mental element of crimes against humanity, by demonstrating knowledge and intent to shield conduct from scrutiny.
It also interferes with the right to seek, receive and impart information under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Arrests inside hospitals and the sanctity of medical care
Equally serious are claims that security forces periodically entered hospitals to arrest wounded protesters.
Under international human rights law, hospitals enjoy special protection as civilian institutions. While Iran is not in an internationally recognised armed conflict, the principle of medical neutrality applies in both human rights and humanitarian law. Interfering with medical treatment or arresting patients receiving emergency care can amount to inhuman treatment and arbitrary detention.
Doctors described conditions comparable to a battlefield, treating injured people outdoors without supplies. The inability to provide adequate care due to state interference could expose authorities to liability for violations of the right to health under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Iranian authorities have accused protesters of instigating violence and released videos alleging foreign sabotage, armed attacks on police and the ransacking of mosques. The article notes that at least 135 individuals affiliated with the government have been killed.
Under international law, states retain the right to maintain public order and protect life. However, this does not dilute the absolute prohibition on targeting civilians or using indiscriminate force. Even in the presence of violent actors, law enforcement must distinguish between peaceful demonstrators and armed individuals, and must use force proportionately.
The burden lies with the state to demonstrate that lethal or permanently disabling force was strictly necessary in each individual case. The scale and uniformity of the reported injuries would make such justification exceptionally difficult to sustain before any impartial tribunal.
Iran’s own constitution guarantees, at least on paper, the right to peaceful assembly provided it does not violate Islamic principles. It also affirms the inviolability of human dignity and prohibits arbitrary detention.
If protesters chanting political slogans such as “death to the dictator” were met with live fire to the head or eyes, this would represent not merely international illegality but also a profound breach of domestic constitutional obligations.
Iranian criminal law does not authorise security forces to maim civilians as a deterrent strategy. Any official orders to do so would be unlawful even under domestic standards, exposing individual commanders to potential criminal liability should political conditions change.
The international response and its limitations
Despite the scale of the alleged violence, the practical avenues for accountability remain limited.
Security Council action is constrained by geopolitical realities, particularly the positions of Russia and China. Targeted sanctions, such as those imposed by the European Union and United Kingdom after the 2022 protests, remain one of the few available tools. These may include asset freezes and travel bans against commanders, police chiefs and officials within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Universal jurisdiction cases remain theoretically possible. Courts in Germany, Sweden and France have already exercised jurisdiction over crimes committed in Syria based on the presence of suspects in their territory. Should Iranian officials travel abroad, similar proceedings could be initiated.
The documentation by doctors, including photographic evidence, medical records and contemporaneous testimony, will be central to any future legal process. The article notes that physicians believe the true death toll is far higher than reported due to the communications blackout.
Doctors described the events as a mass casualty situation, with facilities and personnel far below what was required. One physician stated that international media coverage does not represent even one percent of the reality, as information simply does not reach the outside world.
If hundreds have already been permanently blinded, Iran is facing not only a political crisis but a long term public health catastrophe. Thousands of young people may live the rest of their lives with severe disabilities, psychological trauma and social marginalisation.
From an international relations perspective, this entrenches Iran’s isolation. Allegations of systematic maiming place the country alongside regimes historically associated with extreme repression, undermining any diplomatic effort to normalise relations or secure sanctions relief.
The legal meaning of the eyes
In international law, the eyes are not merely organs. They symbolise personhood, dignity and participation in public life. Deliberately destroying them is not crowd control. It is a statement that dissent will be answered with permanent erasure.
If the accounts from Tehran hospitals are accurate, then the Iranian authorities are not merely suppressing protests. They are allegedly conducting a campaign of physical and psychological annihilation against a civilian population demanding economic and political change.
The legal consequences may be delayed, constrained by politics and power. But they are not erased. Medical records endure. Testimony survives. And under international law, there is no statute of limitations for crimes of this magnitude.
History shows that regimes often succeed in silencing streets. They rarely succeed in silencing evidence.