Victims of Iran's 2022 crackdown file legal claim against officials

A group of victims of the Iranian government crackdown during the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 have filed the first criminal complaint against 40 named Iranian officials alleging crimes against humanity, including targeted blinding and murder.

- Patrick Wintour

The request for a criminal investigation to be launched has been filed in Argentina by a group of Iranians with the help of the nonprofit Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Argentinian legal system is especially open to accommodating universal jurisdiction claims.

The filing claims the response from Iran's security forces to the protests in Iran included "shooting live ammunition, paintball guns, metal pellets not intended to be shot at close range, and other projectiles at protesters.

"They also carried out mass arrests, arbitrary detentions, custodial torture, and ... even executions of protesters that continue to the present day." Officers across the range of Iran's security services have been named in the filing, but their names are being kept confidential.

One of those making the claim, UK-based Mahsa Piraei, told the Guardian that "what is being pursued here is not revenge in a personal sense, but accountability and truth".