\nThe Secretary-General has received the following written statement, which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996\/31.
\n[25 May 2026]\n
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I. Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n The period from 1 January to 20 May 2026 has produced verifiable evidence of a systematic and deliberately escalating campaign of gender-based violence conducted by the Iranian state against women and girls. What confronts this Council is not an accumulation of isolated incidents but a coherent structure of repression in which violence against women functions as an explicit instrument of political and social control. As nationwide protests erupted in late 2025, the Islamic Republic responded with a gendered crackdown of exceptional severity, targeting women across every sphere of civic life. These measures demand urgent, concrete action from this body.<\/p>\n \n II. Overview: A Legal Architecture of Subordination<\/strong><\/p>\n The Law on Protecting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab, which entered into force in December 2024, has deepened the legal subordination of women in Iran. Its deliberately vague provisions criminalise improper dress, extend enforcement obligations to employers and educational administrators, and create civilian surveillance networks. Sanctions range from travel bans and imprisonment of up to fifteen years to the death penalty for peaceful activism against compulsory veiling. Far from protecting women, this legislation legalises violence against them and has provided the framework within which the abuses documented during this period have occurred. [3]\n \n III. Repression of Women Activists, Professionals, and Human Rights Defenders<\/strong><\/p>\n As of 10 May 2026, the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) had documented 64 women political prisoners sentenced to execution or facing a serious risk of death sentence. [1] Those listed include physicians, lawyers, teachers, engineers, artists, students, and mothers, their arrests spanning the country from Rasht to Ahvaz, from Mashhad to Kerman.<\/p>\n Among those documented: Ameneh Soleymani, a doctor and clinic director, faces death under the charge of \u201ccorruption on earth\u201d for treating injured protesters. Sarvenaz Amiri, a physician, was arrested at her Tehran home on 11 January 2026 on identical grounds. Fatemeh Afshari, an operating room specialist and mother of an eight-year-old, was arrested for providing emergency care. Treating the wounded has become, in the logic of the Islamic Republic, a capital offence. Mojgan Ilanlou, 55, a documentary filmmaker and former political prisoner, was arrested at her home in Tehran on 15 March 2026 and transferred to Evin Prison. Negar Ajam, a journalist, and Negin Khaksar, a pianist, were detained following the January 2026 protests. The arrest of artists and journalists for their professional identity is not incidental repression: it is the deliberate suppression of women\u2019s public voice. [1]\n \n IV. State Violence, Arbitrary Detention, and Gender-Based Violence in Custody<\/strong><\/p>\n The arrests documented during the reporting period are characterised by systematic violations of due process. Multiple cases involve enforced disappearances: Aniseh Nejati, a mother of a five-year-old, has been held in conditions of enforced disappearance since 10 January 2026; Dasta Farrokhi, Roxana Ghanbari, and sisters Mahsa and Mandana Sotoudeh are among those whose whereabouts remain concealed from their families. [1]\n Najmeh Mohammadi, 23, sentenced to death on charges of \u201cenmity against God,\u201d was subjected to confessions extracted under torture, a pattern documented across multiple cases. Reliable sources corroborate that women detained in connection with protests and hijab enforcement have been subjected to physical violence, including rape and sexual abuse by state agents, constituting grave violations of the prohibition of torture. [1] [3] Nasimeh Eslam Zehy was arrested while pregnant and has since given birth in prison; her husband was executed in 2026 and she remains on death row with her infant. Diana Taherabadi, sixteen, and Somayeh Nazari, also a minor, both face death sentences in detention facilities. [1]\n \n V. Discriminatory Legal and Institutional Restrictions<\/strong><\/p>\n The Chastity and Hijab Law exemplifies a broader pattern of discriminatory legislation subjecting women to coercive enforcement in every dimension of daily life. During the reporting period, women were arrested for online expression, for attending memorial ceremonies, and for professing minority religious identities. Azar Yahoo faces a death sentence for sharing a sticker in cyberspace. Minou Mehrabani, a Zoroastrian woman, was arrested in March 2026 for administering a faith-related Telegram channel. [1]\n Judicial proceedings against women have been marked by extreme brevity and absence of meaningful procedural protection. Zahra Shahbaz Tabari, 68, received a death sentence at a trial reportedly lasting ten minutes. Mani Farhadi, a Kurdish activist, was sentenced to death without access to a privately retained lawyer. These cases do not represent a failure of due process: they represent its deliberate elimination. [1]\n \n VI. Violence against Women from Ethnic and Religious Minorities<\/strong><\/p>\n The repression documented during this period is marked by sharp intersectionality. Women belonging to ethnic and religious minorities face compounded persecution in which political, ethnic, and gender-based discrimination converge. Kurdish women\u2019s rights defenders Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi remain under confirmed death sentences; the application of Moradi\u2019s sentence, temporarily stayed in December 2025, was re-examined by authorities in April 2026. [1]\n Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed women are disproportionately represented on death row: Arshia Afshar (18), Aylin Sahragar (24), Kamelia Nazari (18), Shakila Ghasemi, Mahsa and Mandana Sotoudeh, Nita Babanejad, and Sara Sepehri face capital charges or enforced disappearance solely on the basis of their religious identity. Seyedeh Ghazal Shafie, 23, a member of the Yarsan community, was arrested at her home on 9 January 2026. Farideh Ketabi, elderly and infirm, was arrested in March 2026 solely to pressure her daughter \u2014 an LGBTQI+ activist in exile in Europe. Field documentation records at least 250 women killed during the January 2026 protests, including 24 Kurdish women and three Kurdish girls under eighteen shot by security forces. [1] [2]\n \n VII. Human and Psychological Impact<\/strong><\/p>\n The human cost of this repression must be placed on record. Women are detained for treating the wounded, for attending funerals, for inquiring about disappeared relatives, for sharing content online. Mahnaz Haddad Kakhki, a 53-year-old teacher, was arrested on 22 February 2026 solely for appearing at court to ask about her son\u2019s whereabouts. [1] Families living under the shadow of secret detention and imminent execution experience sustained psychological violence that compounds their grief and forecloses any avenue for redress.<\/p>\n The deliberate targeting of women doctors, lawyers, journalists, and artists sends a clear message to Iranian society: that women who exercise independent judgment, or who bear witness to injustice, will be treated as enemies of the state. This effect is intended, not incidental. [5]\n \n VIII. Legal Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n Iran is a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The violations documented here constitute systematic breaches of Iran\u2019s binding obligations. The death penalty imposed on women for protest, medical care, religious practice, and artistic expression violates Articles 6 and 18\u201319 of the ICCPR. Torture and sexual violence in detention violate Article 7. The detention of minors on capital charges violates Articles 6(5) and 24 of the ICCPR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Chastity and Hijab Law is incompatible with Articles 2 and 26 of the ICCPR and with customary norms corresponding to CEDAW. The pattern described, widespread, systematic, deliberately targeting women as a social group, raises serious questions of crimes against humanity that this Council must examine with urgency.<\/p>\n \n IX. Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n We call upon the Council, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and Member States to:<\/p>\n \u2013 Demand the immediate and unconditional release of all 64 women on death row or facing execution risk as documented by CFPPI as of May 2026, and of all women detained for the exercise of protected rights;<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013 Call for immediate commutation of all death sentences imposed on women for protest, medical care, religious identity, or expression, including those of Pakhshan Azizi, Varisheh Moradi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, Nasimeh Eslam Zehy, and Najmeh Mohammadi;<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013 Press Iran to repeal the Chastity and Hijab Law and cease all measures subjecting women to detention, judicial sanction, or physical violence;<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013 Call for independent investigations into all cases of torture and sexual violence against women in detention, and into the killings of women and girls during the January 2026 protests;<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013 Urge the authorities to disclose the whereabouts and legal status of all women held in enforced disappearance and guarantee their access to independent legal counsel;<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013 Invite the Special Rapporteur to examine the evidence supporting characterisation of Iran\u2019s treatment of women as gender apartheid and to recommend appropriate accountability measures.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/u><\/p>\n Sources :<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) ; List of 64 women political prisoners sentenced to execution . https:\/\/cfppi.org<\/p>\n [2] Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Statistical report on violations of women\u2019s rights, 8 March 2026; field reports, January – May 2026. https:\/\/hengaw.net<\/p>\n [3] Iran Human Rights Monitor (Iran HRM) ; Annual report 2025, Part 4; monthly reports, January\u2013May 2026. https:\/\/iran-hrm.com<\/p>\n [4] Zagros Human Rights Center ; Documentation on gender-based violence, ethnic and religious minority women, and political prisoners in Iran, 2026.<\/p>\n [5] Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) ; Reports on mass arrests, reprisals against families, and women political prisoners, January\u2013May 2026. https:\/\/iranhumanrights.org<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Link : https:\/\/documents.un.org\/doc\/undoc\/gen\/g26\/093\/39\/pdf\/g2609339.pdf<\/p>\n
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