New testimonies from physicians inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, shared with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), add to mounting evidence from health care professionals about the scale and severity of the recent nationwide crackdown, which many observers describe as the most violent in the country’s recent history, including the 1979 Revolution.
“The doctors we’ve heard from are exhausted and shaken. They describe elderly men and women, and firefighters brought in with gunshot wounds. Some of these people weren’t even protesting — they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When bullets hit children and pregnant women, this is not about security anymore. It’s about human life. The world needs to understand the scale of what is happening and stand with those risking everything to save lives,” said Arash Alaei, MD, MPH, a US-based physician and co-founder, with his brother Kamiar Alaei, MD, MPH, of Medical Alliance for Health Services Abroad (MAHSA).
Drs. Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei, who were both once held in Evin Prison, conducted several online exchanges with health care workers across the country during and after the violent crackdown. “The targeting of physicians and health facilities by Iranian authorities demonstrates a deliberate strategy to turn the country’s health infrastructure from a tool that serves the people into a further arm of the government’s security and punishment apparatus,” said Dr. Kamiar Alaei.
Physicians for Human Rights strongly supports last month’s UN Human Rights Council resolution calling on its Fact-Finding Mission to conduct an urgent, independent, and impartial investigation into allegations of recent and ongoing serious human rights violations and abuses, as well as crimes committed in relation to the protests beginning December 28, 2025.
“The growing body of evidence coming out of Iran shows that the authorities used unprecedented levels of violence against protesters, including live ammunition, and are trying to hide the evidence at healthcare facilities. The testimony we’ve reviewed shows the courage of health care providers in Iran who have had to respond to a mass crisis event that they were totally unprepared for, who have faced direct threats and persecution because of what they witnessed, and who have to contend with the possible impact of war against the world’s most powerful military,” said Sam Zarifi, JD, LLM, PHR executive director.
The use of live ammunition against protesters is a grave violation of the United Nations’ Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which requires police to “minimize damage and injury, and respect and preserve human life.” It also obliges them to “ensure that assistance and medical aid are rendered to any injured or affected persons at the earliest possible moment.”
“The emerging evidence coming out of Iran indicates the violence against protesters was coordinated, systematic, widespread, and similar across the country, crucial factors in establishing whether a crime against humanity has taken place,” Zarifi concluded.
The following testimonies are drawn from online conversations conducted by Drs. Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei in January 2026 with health workers based in Iran:
- “In 2019 [an earlier round of nationwide protests], although there was a lot of killing, not a single body came to our hospitals, but on Friday night the massacre was so widespread that we had 4 deaths in the [location withheld] emergency room and 28 in [location withheld], and some died after surgery and are still dying in the wards. The killing, especially on Friday night [January 9], was very, very different from 2019.”
- “In [location withheld], colleagues said that there were so many bodies in the emergency room on Friday [January 9], that the blood covered the floor of the emergency room and they were walking in blood.”
- “There were all kinds of people (in the hospital) from old men and women to pregnant women and even the police and Basij (paramilitary) forces, who sometimes disabled each other aimlessly shooting at anything moving thing with shotguns, trying not to let anyone know that the atmosphere was very dangerous for them.”
- “They broke into the house of Dr. [name withheld] OB-GYN, [facility withheld] at 4 AM and took them away.”
- “Firefighters were shot for not cooperating in the suppression.”
- “The hospitals are full of wounded and injured people. Only the very seriously injured are in the hospital. The rest are not coming out of fear.”
- “There are many people who were not in the protests and who were shot in the head and face while passing by.”
- “A woman whose neck was shattered by a war bullet and her children were crying in the car, a child whose pelvis, bladder and rectum were shattered by a war bullet, young men whose brains were shattered by a war bullet and … these are scenes that become a constant nightmare. I really feel guilty that I am alive and so many people were massacred.”
- “The first night [January 8] it was more tear gas and pellets and most injured.”
- “The massacre was horrific. Slaughter in every sense of the word. I saw scenes in the hospital that I will never forget for the rest of my life. The first night [January 8], we had 135 admissions and 50 deaths. Bodies of children as young as 11 years old, men, women, and young people, all shot with live ammunition.”
- “The hospitals are full of wounded and injured people. Only very seriously injured and in the hospital. The rest are not coming out of fear. The ICUs (Intensive Care Units) are full, and the wards have been closed and turned into surgical wards.”
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.