Mass killings, foreign militias, post-mortem extortion, and systematic cultural erasure reveal a crimes-against-humanity logic the world can no longer ignore.
Iran today stands at a threshold: not of reform, but of survival. The massacres of January 9 and 10, resulting in an estimated 20,000 deaths, illustrate the scale of the atrocities (tbsnews.net) and signify more than a crackdown—they represent nothing less than crimes against humanity. In my view, by deploying foreign Islamist militias against its own citizens, the regime has triggered the international community’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P, UN, 2005).
The national revolution in Iran is not merely political or economic. It is not only about overthrowing an Islamist regime or replacing one governing structure with another. What is unfolding is deeper and slower–a national renaissance, one emerging in direct response to a sustained campaign of repression and destruction directed against the Iranian people themselves. This movement is best understood not as momentary unrest, but as a civilizational reaction to prolonged violence, enforced amnesia, and systematic humiliation imposed by a state that has progressively severed itself from the nation it claims to rule.
That campaign reached its apotheosis in early January. During those two days, regime forces reportedly deployed heavy weapons against civilian populations, resulting in what Iranian opposition networks and independent monitors estimate to be more than 20,000 people killed within forty-eight hours. In addition, over 25,000 individuals were arrested in Tehran alone, with tens of thousands more detained nationwide. Hundreds of thousands were injured, and millions live in trauma and shock. Families who could not pay the thousands of dollars demanded by authorities to reclaim the bodies of their loved ones—often multiple times the monthly minimum wage of roughly $200—have renounced the retrieval of their own family members, leaving them unclaimed. Even allowing for the fog inherent in mass atrocities under information blackouts, the scale, speed, and coordination of the violence place these events well beyond the category of crowd control or political repression. These were coordinated, nationwide operations executed with the full capacity of the state, consistent with patterns documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and successive UN Special Rapporteur reports on Iran.
Foreign Militias and Regional Implications
What distinguishes this repression from conventional authoritarian control is the Islamic Republic’s systematic reliance on foreign Islamist militias to enforce internal domination. Foreign mercenaries drawn from four countries, armed groups such as Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi, Pakistan’s Zeynabiyoun Brigade, Afghanistan’s Fatemiyoun Division, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been trained, funded, and operationally integrated by Tehran and deployed as instruments of coercion against Iranian civilians. These groups act as extensions of the regime’s coercive reach, projecting internal violence beyond Iran’s borders and demonstrating the regime’s disregard for both domestic and regional stability.
For Iran, a Pahlavi-led renaissance is not an abstract aspiration. It represents the restoration of domestic sovereignty and a realist balance-of-power in the Middle East, countering Tehran’s export of revolutionary violence. In this sense, the struggle is not merely about domestic liberation—it is about reestablishing a predictable, sovereign Iran capable of stabilizing its neighborhood.
Within this environment of systematic repression, the slogans of the uprising are not symbolic gestures. Chants such as “This is the final battle,” “Pahlavi will return,” and “Javid Shah” articulate a clear collective demand. In mass politics, slogans are evidence; they crystallize collective will into unmistakable demand. They signal that large segments of Iranian society are not calling for ideological experimentation or revolutionary rupture, but for restoration—the return of a national anchor associated with sovereignty, stability, security, and historical continuity.
The invocation of the Pahlavi name is not nostalgia; it is strategic. It reflects a popular desire to reconnect Iran to a political and ethical framework associated with state-building, modernization, territorial integrity, and international legitimacy. The national renaissance is not abstract—it is anchored in a concrete vision of order, continuity, and legitimacy.
Post-Mortem Extortion and Cultural Erasure
A particularly cruel dimension of the repression is the post-mortem extortion imposed on grieving families. In cities like Rasht and Mashhad, families have reportedly been forced to pay hundreds of millions of tomans—often multiple months’ wages—just to retrieve the bodies of their deceased loved ones. Many cannot pay, and as a result, renounce the reclamation of their family members entirely. This is not mere fiscal cruelty; it is a deliberate strategy of humiliation, erasing the social and cultural presence of the victims even after death. Combined with the targeting of libraries, historical records, and religious sites, this constitutes a systematic attack on the very fabric of Iranian cultural memory.
The legal threshold for crimes against humanity is clearly met. Under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the January 9–10 killings and ongoing repression constitute widespread and systematic attacks against a civilian population, carried out with knowledge and intent. Foreign militias provide evidence of an organizational policy to commit the attacks, while post-mortem extortion and cultural erasure qualify as “other inhumane acts” causing great suffering. The pattern of arrests, killings, and threats of execution demonstrates the requisite mens rea for international prosecution.
Although Iran is not a party to the ICC, this does not confer immunity. Crimes against humanity fall under universal jurisdiction, allowing national courts to prosecute perpetrators regardless of where the crimes were committed—a principle already applied in European cases against Iranian officials.
The R2P Imperative
The situation also triggers the binding obligations of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, UN, 2005. The R2P framework outlines three pillars:
Pillar I: The state has failed to protect its population and is itself the perpetrator.
Pillar II: The international community must assist the victims—in this case, the Iranian Renaissance.
Pillar III: The world must take timely and decisive action, because the state is manifestly failing.
Dialogue without consequence does not stop executions. Statements do not dismantle firing squads. Delay does not preserve stability; it enables atrocity. The use of foreign Islamist militias demonstrates the dehumanization of the population and confirms that the regime no longer governs Iran as a sovereign state accountable to its citizens but as hostile territory. This pattern aligns with broader of crimes against humanity logic—not limited to physical destruction, but extending to the destruction of cultural memory, historical continuity, and collective identity.
Iranian society has made its position unmistakably clear. It is resisting a tyrannical system that governs through terror, foreign militias, post-mortem extortion, and cultural erasure. It is calling for the restoration of national sovereignty and ethical order. Support from democratic states aligned with the United States and Israel is not interference; it is alignment with international law and a population facing mass atrocities.
The national renaissance underway is not aspirational but defensive—an act of historical self-preservation. Even after collapse, reconstruction will be arduous. Delay will be measured not only in lives lost but in the erosion of Iran’s civilizational continuity. Yet, through this defiance, Iran’s people signal a fundamental truth: societies can survive systematic oppression when the yearning for continuity, memory, and dignity is stronger than fear.
