Marzieh Mohebbi, an exiled Iranian lawyer based in Paris, has issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Volker Türk, calling for immediate international action against the Iranian government’s escalating human rights violations.
In a powerful and detailed letter sent to the Office of the UN High Commissioner in Geneva, Mohebbi outlined a decades-long pattern of oppression by the Islamic Republic, accusing the regime of committing a wide range of atrocities including systemic discrimination, arbitrary executions, torture, suppression of dissent, and mass detentions. She described the situation in Iran as a “boundless catalog of atrocities” and emphasized that current conditions are rapidly deteriorating.
Mohebbi’s letter highlights the regime’s recent mass expulsions of Afghan refugees and children, many of whom have lived in Iran for years but are denied legal recognition and basic rights. According to her statement, the Islamic Republic has forcibly deported Afghan families, often without warning, violating both domestic law and international obligations. “They are cast, vulnerable and alone, into the abyss of death and devastation,” she wrote.
The lawyer also warned of increasing use of espionage accusations as a pretext for arresting and executing ordinary citizens. Most notably, she condemned recent statements from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ media outlet, which openly praised the 1988 prison massacre—a mass killing of political prisoners—and called for its repetition.
“The lives of political prisoners, stateless children, Afghan refugees, and innocent civilians are in grave danger,” Mohebbi wrote. She stressed that the Iranian people, long silenced and isolated, have continuously looked to international institutions for support, only to be met with silence.
Mohebbi criticized the Iranian regime’s response to the recent 12-day conflict with Israel, accusing the government of failing to take even basic steps to protect civilians—such as issuing air raid alerts—while continuing to suppress internal dissent with brutal force. “The Islamic Republic is incapable of protecting its citizens and is dragging the region into deeper instability,” she wrote, declaring the regime has lost all national and international legitimacy.
Her appeal ends with a call to the UN and the global human rights community to confront this “historic test” and take decisive action before more lives are lost.
Mohebbi’s letter serves as yet another stark reminder of the worsening human rights situation in Iran and raises renewed concerns about the safety of vulnerable groups inside the country.
Below is the full text of the letter:
Date: July 8, 2025
His Excellency Mr. Volker Türk
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Subject: Urgent Appeal for Action Against Human Rights Violations in Iran
Dear High Commissioner Türk,
The 47-year record of the Islamic Republic of Iran is an unrelenting chronicle of widespread violations of all universal human rights standards. Systematic and persistent oppression of women, national, ethnic, religious, and gender-based discrimination, the execution and killing of children in the streets, the massacre of protesting citizens, their imprisonment, torture, and assault, the suppression of media and severance of internet access, the weekly erection of gallows in the nation’s prisons, and the ever-growing toll of defenseless victims of the Revolutionary Courts—these represent but a brief account of the boundless catalog of atrocities committed by this regime.
Yet today, as this regime confronts the consequences of decades of hollow promises to “liberate Jerusalem” and stokes the flames of war with Israel, bearing the wounds of a twelve-day conflict, it has recklessly escalated its crimes. Before the eyes of global human rights institutions, it has expelled Iranian-Afghan children—deprived of integration into the political system and denied citizenship in violation of domestic and international laws—casting them, vulnerable and alone, into the abyss of death and devastation. It detains Afghan refugees en masse, abandons them across borders without even the chance to pack their belongings, and triumphantly flouts its obligations under treaties and conventions to which it is bound.
Simultaneously, it brands ordinary citizens as spies, subjects them to arrest, torture, and execution. I beseech Your Excellency to take note: today, one of the most sinister manifestations of this regime’s crimes—the massacre of thousands of prisoners in 1988—has been brazenly glorified by the news agency of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with explicit calls for its repetition.
Mr. High Commissioner,
The lives of political prisoners,
The lives of stateless Iranian children and Afghan refugees,
The lives of defenseless Iranian women and men ensnared by the delusions of security forces,
—are all in grave peril.
Iran, in the clutches of the Islamic Republic, stands utterly defenseless. For decades, from childhood to this day, its people have looked to responsible international institutions for support, only to be met with silence. The time has come for global human rights to rise to this historic test and take decisive action.
Mr. High Commissioner, this regime has forfeited its national and international legitimacy. Beyond tormenting its own people, it has drawn much of the world into the specter of war. It is wholly incapable of ensuring the safety of its citizens; during twelve days of conflict, it failed to sound a single air raid siren, revealing that the security of its people is of no concern to it. Mired in systemic corruption, it has no regard for meeting the basic needs of its population and now resolves once more to slaughter thousands of defenseless imprisoned citizens.
Today, the conscience of humanity is called to act. The people of Iran stand alone and unprotected.
With utmost respect,
Marzieh Mohebbi
Exiled Iranian Lawyer
