Turning Hospitals into Tools of Repression and Killing
The Iran Human Rights Organization, based in Norway, has received shocking testimonies from doctors and medical staff in various cities across Iran indicating that during the suppression of protests in January 2026, the Islamic Republic turned hospitals and medical centers into part of its killing machinery. These testimonies indicate that injured protesters were not only deprived of their right to treatment, but in some cases were deliberately killed in medical centers or arrested from hospital beds and transferred to unknown locations.
A doctor from Lorestan Province has revealed horrifying details about the role of doctors close to the government in killing the injured. According to this eyewitness, a doctor named Dr. H.M., who is affiliated with the Islamic Republic, would send injured security forces to the operating room, but regarding ordinary injured individuals would order: “Let them die right here.” This doctor confirmed that injured individuals who had breathing tubes were deliberately disconnected from oxygen devices and, while still alive, placed in morgue storage.
A doctor from Fars Province also stated that many injured individuals had been shot in the head, but due to telephone shutdowns, medical staff were unable even to contact on-call surgeons. Eyewitnesses from Tehran have reported that security forces, by presenting judicial warrants, obtained the complete list of hospitalized patients, the information of those who paid medical expenses, and their bank card numbers from hospitals in order to identify and arrest the injured.
An eyewitness from Lorestan reported that the bodies of killed injured individuals were brought to hospitals using ice cream freezer trucks, unloaded in the yard, and without being sent to forensic medicine, death certificates were issued for them and they were buried collectively. Many families are still searching for their children. Families of those killed are told they must either declare that their child was a member of the Basij, or pay an amount between seven hundred and fifty million to one billion tomans as “bullet money.”
A specialist doctor from Tehran reported that gunshot-wounded individuals in hospitals are treated under false causes such as “accident” or “tumor.” He gives an example: “A 22-year-old girl who yesterday underwent surgery with a diagnosis of jaw tumor had actually been shot in the throat.” Security forces also raided Milad, Saadi, Sepahan, Sina, and Gharazi hospitals in Isfahan and took more than 500 case files related to the injured with them.
The Iran Human Rights Organization confirms the arrest of at least 35 doctors, nurses, and medical staff members due to helping treat protesters. Security forces, by raiding homes and clinics, violently arrested doctors and volunteer medics and destroyed their property. In Isfahan, cases of threats, summons, and arrests of doctors have been reported. Many injured individuals, due to fear of arrest, left their treatment unfinished and turned to hidden and unofficial treatments.
A doctor from Rasht reported that in just one hospital, approximately 1,200 deaths were recorded on the first day of admitting the injured on January 8, 2026. The eyewitness describes the atmosphere of Rasht city from January 10, 2026 onward as resembling “European occupied zones by Nazi German forces during World War II.” It is difficult to find a family that has not lost a loved one or had a relative injured.
One Hundred and Fifty Empty Benches: The Killing of Children and Students
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations has published a list of 150 students who lost their lives as a result of the massacre on the days of January 8 and January 9, 2026. These children and teenagers should have been in classrooms, not in death statistics. One hundred and fifty empty benches show what was taken from these children: the possibility of living, the right to learn, and the right to grow up without fear.
These children were killed, but before that they were repeatedly erased: from school, from the street, from official narratives, and from the memory that the ruling authority sought to control. Taking these lives is the direct product of policies of repression, cheapening life, shooting down dreams, and removing the child from the equation of the future. The Teachers’ Council emphasizes that they publish this list not for momentary tears, but to break the chain of normalizing the death of children and so that no one can say, “We did not know.”
These systematic crimes against the people of Iran, especially children and teenagers, demonstrate the complete collapse of any moral and legal standards in the Islamic Republic.
Turning hospitals into tools of killing, deliberate murder of injured individuals through cutting breathing devices, falsification of medical documents, and repression of medical staff are all examples of crimes against humanity.
These crimes have deep political consequences. Every drop of blood that has been spilled, every child who has lost their life, and every mother and father who sits in mourning for their child drives a nail into the worn body of this government. The people of Iran, whose families have been bereaved, will never forget these crimes. The gap between the people and the government has deepened irreparably.
The international community, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization must decisively condemn these crimes and conduct independent investigations into these reports. The use of the medical system as a tool of repression is not only a human rights crisis but also a global health crisis requiring immediate international response.
But beyond international condemnation, what is certain is that the Islamic Republic and all criminals who have been involved in committing these crimes will, in the tomorrow of freedom which is not far away, receive their deserved punishment before the justice of the uprising people. History has shown that no dictatorship remains forever, and a people who have made such heavy sacrifices will ultimately be victorious.
One hundred and fifty empty benches, thousands of crying eyes, and millions of grieving hearts are all witnesses to crimes that will never be forgotten and will never remain unpunished.
