Impact Iran

My mandate has issued a call for inputs for my upcoming report to the 64th session of the Human Rights Council. In addition to a general update on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the report will focus on transnational repression, the impact of human rights violations on families, women’s rights, and gender-based discrimination. Deadline: 15 November 2026 Email: [email protected] ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input…

Important post from the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association

Mohsen Eslamkhah, a Kurd from Bukan, was 16 when the Woman, Life, Freedom protests began in 2022. Like many other young people, he took to the streets to call for freedom, dignity and change. In February 2026 a Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death for moharebeh (enmity against God) for acts alleged to have taken place when he was a child. He remains on death row. International law leaves no room here. Key treaties ratified by Iran prohibit the death penalty for offences committed under 18.  Mohsen is not alone. My mandate has received reports of others facing execution for offences allegedly committed when they were children. Four years on, many young people once again took to the streets, calling for a better future they felt was slipping away from them. Shervin Bagherian Jebeli was one of them. He had turned 18 days only days before security forces raided his home in Isfahan at night in January 2026. His family heard nothing for a week. Then State television aired his confession, recorded under interrogation, before any trial. In it, he is told he is charged with moharebeh. He does not appear to know what the word means. He was sentenced to death with 11 others in a single closed hearing, with no clarity as to what each is accused of doing. He remains on death row. The rule on children exists because young people are developing and capable of change, and that does not stop on a birthday. The death sentences against Mohsen and the others who were children at the time are prohibited outright. Shervin’s case should make us deeply uneasy: a death sentence for a boy who had been an adult for a matter of days. But his age is not the only reason he should not be executed. A week of enforced disappearance, an apparently coerced confession broadcast before trial, and a closed hearing that never said what he personally is accused of having done are each reason enough. Respecting the prohibition on executing children is the least Iranian authorities can do; halting these executions is what the authorities must do. A young person’s future should not end with a death sentence. My Mandate’s Communication on Mohsen Eslamkhah spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the Iranian authorities spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… My Mandate’s communication on Shervin Bagherian Jebeli spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the government received but not published yet. It will be available here later today - spcommreports.ohchr.org/TmSe…