In Iran, young people are disappearing…

Do not speak over us. Do not speak for us. Stand with us. Amplify our voices. Protect us.

What is happening in Iran?

It has been 51 days since the start of the protests that spanned 210 cities in all 31 provinces of Iran under a digital blackout. Protestors that were calling for dignity, justice and an ordinary life were suppressed by brutal government forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Internet and landline phones were shut down for over 20 days and access remains constrained and minimal.

This brutal massacre is now being viewed as amounting to crimes against humanity. Based on the latest aggregated data shared by HRANA by 15 February 2026, there are 7,015 confirmed deaths – 226 of them children – and another 11,744 deaths still remain under investigation. The arrests number have risen to 53,552 individuals of which 144 were students. 11,053 summonses have been issued and 25,845 injured civilians are reported in varying conditions. 335 cases of forced confessions were documented, and many families are still in search of their loved ones – dead or alive. One look at the face of the victims shows that many of them have one thing in common: they are young people exercising their rights as active citizens demanding human rights and dignity.

Yet, security forces have deployed live ammunition, sniper fire from rooftops and minarets, mass arrests, military grade weaponry and targeted blinding and killings. Protesters have been marked with green lasers before being shot. Hospitals have been raided, leaving the injured in fear sitting with medical complications at home. Protestors have been detained or executed. Families are threatened. Internet access has been shut down to hide evidence. Deaths are reframed as “terrorism.” Parents are forced to sign false martyrdom papers or pay humongous amounts of money as ‘bullet money’ to retrieve their children’s bodies. Body bags are laid out in warehouses in hundreds without proper identification. Heavily security-controlled funerals are turning into resistance moments with mourning families playing music and chanting instead of crying. Iranians go to bed and wake up both hoping for international intervention and fearing military escalation to the cost of the lives of their loved ones. The diaspora is left disconnected, threatened, heartbroken, mobilising, marching in tens of thousands and drowning in survival guilt.

Our Lived Realities from the Streets

The protests may appear from the outside as sudden. But for Iranians, this is another generational uprising following a string of attempts to hold a system accountable after decades of repression, human rights violation, economic collapse, gender apartheid, and violence against its citizens.

Iranian youth across different generations have previously kept the momentum for accountability high. They have showed up:

During the Women, Life, Freedom movement following the custodial killing of Mahsa Jina Amini, when young women and youth-led protests demanded bodily autonomy and dignity and were met with live fire, mass arrests, executions, and nationwide internet shutdowns
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when citizens spoke up for the need to access life-saving medical care and vaccines while authorities concealed the scale of the outbreak, delayed public health protections, restricted independent assistance, and mismanaged the crisis by withholding vaccines in ways that contributed to preventable mass deaths
During protests for accountability after the IRGC downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, when grieving families and students demanding truth were threatened, detained and faced surveillance
During the November 2019 (Bloody Aban) nationwide protests, when people demonstrated against a sudden threefold increase in petrol prices and authorities imposed the first countrywide internet blackout while security forces killed hundreds to thousands of protesters with impunity
During peaceful acts of civil disobedience such as the Girls of Revolution Street (Enghelab Street) when young women who publicly removed compulsory hijab and protested their right to bodily autonomy were immediately arrested and imprisoned
During the 2009 Green Movement, when millions peacefully protested a rigged presidential election and were met with brutality, enforced disappearances, torture, exile, and execution
During the One Million Signatures Campaign in 2006, when women’s rights activists peacefully organised to challenge discriminatory laws and were suppressed through harassment, arbitrary arrests, and forced exile
During repeated ethnic and religious minority crackdowns across Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchistan, and other regions, when Kurdish, Arab, Baluch, and other communities mobilised for rights and were met with militarisation, collective punishment, mass arrests, and lethal force
During ongoing teacher, labour, and pensioner strikes, when workers and educators (including those retired) demanding basic livelihoods were criminalised, detained, and prosecuted for organising and unionising
During the 1999 Kooye Daneshgah incident and broader student-led protests, when students protested press censorship and security forces stormed university dormitories overnight, beating, arresting and forcefully disappearing students – banning the survivors from pursuing higher education and issuing them long prison sentences
During the post-revolution mass executions of the 1980s, when thousands of political dissidents, students, and young activists were subjected to summary trials and secret executions, erasing an entire generation of youth leadership
During 8 March 1979 women’s rights demonstrations, when just weeks after the Islamic Revolution women gathered to protest compulsory veiling and gender discrimination and were met with intimidation, arrests, and violent dispersal

In all these movements, protestors have been unarmed while the Islamic Republic has responded with varying degrees of violence. Internal reform trajectories have not been successful in meeting citizen demands. Each cycle follows the same script: protest, repression, silence, impunity. In Iran, the social contract no longer stands between the state and its citizens.

How is the situation perceived?

For the past month, the uprising has been globally perceived in different ways:

Some continue to frame the current protests as foreign-driven unrest, thus, erasing the agency of Iranians and their right to protest and demand change. This narrative is inaccurate and dangerous because it reduces Iranians on the street to proxies for external powers and the mercy of international intervention.

Similarly, the inaccurate yet automatic conclusion made is that if sanctions are lifted, then Iranian youth will be able to live a thriving life. This dangerous and simplistic conclusion undermines decades of Iranian women’s nonviolent movement and resistance in their demands for equal rights which has been seen incompatible with the ideological structure of the Islamic Republic. Sanctions relief may support the economy, but it will not reform the foundations of a regime that is incompatible with the demands of its youth.

Others have entangled this movement in broader discourses of far right movements, anti-imperialism and regional stability, often giving it meaning when placed in juxtaposition with the genocide in Gaza, anti-Islamic or with American and Israeli intervention. While the road to peace and resistance passes through every city and country in the world, this approach dehumanizes Iranian struggle and only validates Iranian suffering when it is presented with certain optics and in a certain form catering to the needs of a certain audience.

One final group has remained silent with claims of not knowing enough and not being informed enough to make a statement. Today, as a collective of young Iranian peacebuilders, we have decided to share our knowledge and suffering to break that silence and invite everyone to look inwards and find shared humanity and grief.

If we fail to centre Iranian youth leadership, the future of Iran will not be shaped by those seeking rights and dignity, but by actors driven by individual, geopolitical or ideological interests. History shows that when local agency is ignored, external agendas fill the vacuum.

Why does this matter for Youth, Peace and Security?

State authorities have targeted young people for their participation in protests and exercising their human rights. This is a recurring behavioural pattern of authoritarian regimes. Under their rule, youth are being:

criminalised for protest
executed after unfair trials
forcibly disappeared
cut off from the internet
denied any meaningful political voice and agency
securitised and threatened
and isolated from the international community

This is a direct violation of international human rights and civil liberties, and the core promises of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda. Ten years into its making, the agenda that calls for Participation, Protection, Prevention, Partnerships, and Disengagement & Reintegration is now being abandoned on the streets of Iran in loud global silence.

The treatment of young people in Iran is a litmus test for the credibility and relevance of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda.

When youth participation leads to execution,
when talks of protection disappear when risk is highest,
when early and late warning signs are ignored until violence becomes massacres,
when partnerships prioritise diplomacy over people,
when internet shutdowns erase evidence and accountability,

We find ourselves watching the Youth, Peace and Security being abandoned in real time as We, Iranian Youth, Disappear with it.

Our demands to the international community

For a decade, despite systemic and exclusionary barriers at home and in the international community, young Iranian peacebuilders have time and again shared loud warnings about the situation in Iran and its broader implications in the Middle East. Beyond the occasional applause and noted recommendations, very little has tangibly been done to support youth peacebuilding in Iran.
Many countries have repeatedly issued statements of solidarity and recognised the struggle of Iranian people without taking recommendations forward. Today, once again, we ask you to act where you have power to make change.

Member States and Regional Organisations must:

Publicly condemn the killing and execution of protesters – highlighting the young lives and futures lost
Recognise internet shutdowns as tools of repression and violations of human rights
Support unrestricted access to secure internet, digital security trainings, circumvention and communication tools
Hold perpetrators accountable through targeted Magnitsky sanctions and legal mechanisms directed at chains of command, their families and businesses
Urgently centre Iranian youth and women’s voices in all advocacy and diplomacy – not nuclear deals
Treat youth political participation not as a threat, but as a right

Civil society and global youth networks must:

Amplify verified Iranian voices – ideally and when safe and possible – from inside the country
Recognise the crisis as a widespread and systemic violation of human rights and humanitarian emergency, amounting crimes against humanity—not geopolitical narratives that obscure accountability or dehumanise Iranians
Counter misinformation that delegitimises youth agency by focusing on the real stories from the ground
Provide information exchange, protection, documentation, and solidarity through collaborations and support
Refuse narratives that erase local leadership and centre Iranian humanity and struggle in solidarity

United Nations and Multilateral entities must:

Publicly recognise the targeting, detention, and execution of young protesters in Iran as clear violations of international human rights law and the Youth, Peace and Security agenda, and consistently speak out when youth are harmed – including in progress studies and Secretary General reports
Centre Iranian youth and women activists as decision-makers, not symbolic consultees, by ensuring their leadership directly shapes UN advocacy, programming, and diplomatic engagement
Treat internet shutdowns and digital blackouts as protection failures and invest in secure connectivity, circumvention tools, and safe digital infrastructure that enable documentation, communication, and accountability
Strengthen independent monitoring, reporting, and evidence preservation — including fact-finding missions and research initiatives guided by local youth voices, verification of abuses, and regular briefings to Member States to prevent impunity for authorities who engineer protest-related killings, arrests, and disappearances
Provide specialised coordinated protection and resilience support to youth- and women-led civil society through emergency assistance, digital security, psychosocial care, and flexible funding that reaches communities directly rather than state-aligned intermediaries
Integrate youth rights, gender equality, and human rights across agencies so responses to Iran are joined-up, preventive, and grounded in accountability rather than siloed or symbolic action
Consider the specific circumstances on the ground with regards to Iran, including dismantling aid barriers to youth groups and women groups in Iran

These actions should be prioritised across the United Nations Youth Office, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children’s Fund, and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

We are not symbols.
We are not pawns.
We are not statistics.
We are students, daughters, sons, workers, artists, organisers.
We are a generation asking for the most basic things:
Freedom, dignity, humanity, connection, and an ordinary life.
If the Youth, Peace and Security agenda still means anything, today it must mean this:

When young people risk their lives for freedom, the world sees them and supports them instead of looking away.

Stand with us. Protect us. Keep us connected. Let us lead.

About the author:

The authors of this statement are young Iranian peacebuilders who unceasingly resisted, organized and peacefully denounced injustice and violence and worked for systemic change and the protection of human rights. The authors wish to remain anonymous.