Iran studies scholars voice support for protesters

The video shows the incident taking place at Yahyavi Square during protests on January 8 and 9. At least one woman is believed to have been killed and three others injured.

“Canada strongly condemns the killing of protestors, the use of violence, arbitrary arrests, and intimidation tactics by the Iranian regime against its own people,” Canada’s foreign ministry said in a written response to Iran International.

The ministry added that Canada “will continue to hold Iran accountable for its violations of human rights,” citing measures taken over the past two years to maintain pressure on Tehran and its allies.

It noted that Canada listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in June 2024.

Canada has further designated Iran as a foreign state supporter of terrorism, a designation the government reconfirmed in December 2025, it said.

Last month, Iran International reported that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history.

On January 15, Canada said that one of its citizens has died in Iran at the hands of Iranian authorities, according to a statement by the country’s foreign minister.

“Our consular officials are in contact with the victim’s family in Canada and my deepest condolences are with them at this time,” Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand said in a post on X.

“Peaceful protests by the Iranian people - asking that their voices be heard in the face of the Iranian regime’s repression and ongoing human rights violations - has led the regime to flagrantly disregard human life,” she added.

In a statement dated February 4, the groups said eyewitness testimony, medical evaluations and independent reporting indicate that Iranian security forces deployed non-standard chemical agents during protest crackdowns.

“Victims report symptoms far exceeding ordinary tear gas exposure, including respiratory distress, neurological impairment, cardiovascular instability, persistent headaches, dizziness, and long-term systemic dysfunction,” the statement said.

The coalition said Iranian medical professionals who treated the affected individuals observed consistent clinical patterns that they described as indicative of exposure to unlawful chemical substances.

The statement did not identify the specific agents involved.

The appeal comes after an unprecedentedly violent crackdown on protests across Iran on January 8 and 9, in which thousands were killed and many more wounded.

The signatories—including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi—urged OPCW member states to invoke mechanisms under Article IX of the Chemical Weapons Convention, beginning with a formal request for clarification from Tehran.

They called for authorizing a challenge inspection and the deployment of an independent expert mission to conduct on-site inspections if Iran’s response were deemed inadequate.

The groups also urged the publication of a public factual report detailing findings and levels of cooperation, and coordinated diplomatic, legal and financial consequences including referral to United Nations bodies should Tehran deny or obstruct the process.

“Continued delay enables further harm, the destruction of evidence, and impunity,” the signatories warned, adding that any use of chemical agents against civilians would constitute “a grave violation of international law.”

Iranian authorities have previously denied using prohibited chemical substances against civilians.

The OPCW has not publicly commented on the latest claims.

The call is directed at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and centers on what is known as a “structural investigation,” an evidence-gathering process that could help lay the groundwork for future prosecutions of individuals linked to crimes against humanity.

“We know that there are a number of IRGC officials in Canada, and also a very large Iranian diaspora with substantial evidence they can provide to the RCMP,” said Brandon Silver, an international human rights lawyer and founding director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

“The RCMP can initiate what’s called a structural investigation into crimes against humanity,”

The push comes amid mounting demands for accountability after Iran International’s Editorial Board confirmed that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8–9 crackdown, the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history.

Advocates say Canada must ensure perpetrators cannot find refuge abroad — and that Iranian Canadians have a direct avenue to report evidence.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a member of the Iranian Justice Collective, said structural investigations would give Iranian Canadians a concrete pathway to come forward and begin the accountability process.

Calls from Parliament Hill

The renewed push followed a day of meetings and testimony in Ottawa, where Afshin-Jam appeared before the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights.

“Yesterday I was invited to testify before the subcommittee on international human rights to give an update on the human rights situation in Iran and to also provide some recommendations,” she said.

Afshin-Jam said the aim was to press Canada to move beyond statements of condemnation toward tangible action.

Pressure on the IRGC

Silver also urged Ottawa to expand sanctions against senior officials directing the repression.

“Sanction the architects of this repression, starting with the Ayatollah,” he said.

He argued that Canada should coordinate closely with allies as international pressure mounts on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Afshin-Jam said Canada has already taken significant steps in the past — including listing the IRGC and closing its embassy in Tehran — and should again lead among Western democracies.

Advocates said they were encouraged by signs of cross-party engagement in Parliament but stressed that the next step must be follow-through: evidence collection, sanctions enforcement, and coordinated international action.

For nearly three weeks, millions inside Iran were cut off from the outside world as authorities imposed sweeping restrictions on internet access and international phone lines after the violent suppression of protests. For Iranians in the diaspora, the silence was devastating.

Many describe days and nights spent refreshing news feeds, replaying worst-case scenarios, and bracing for phone calls that never came. Even when limited connections were restored, the anxiety did not ease.

“Psychologically, not knowing what is happening—or whether family members are safe—keeps the body and mind in a prolonged state of stress,” Canadian-Iranian clinical counsellor Farnaz Farrokhi told Iran International.

A state of constant alarm

Farrokhi says many in the diaspora are experiencing “constant anxiety, compulsive news checking, feelings of helplessness and guilt, and emotional disconnection from loved ones.”

“What I’m seeing is the continuation of collective trauma, layered on top of long-standing emotional wounds from years of instability, loss, and fear,” she said, adding that many are also grappling with survivor’s guilt—being physically safe while loved ones are not.

For Narges, an IT specialist living in the Netherlands, the days of disconnection were unbearable.

“At work, my colleagues’ laughter and jokes were painful,” she said. “But I couldn’t—and didn’t have the right to—transfer my anxiety to them. I couldn’t interact the way I normally do.”

She took two days off, hoping rest would help. It did not.

“At home it was no better. Every time the phone rang, the doorbell sounded, or even a small object fell, I jumped. My heart would start racing.”

Trauma spilling into family life

For Taraneh, an Iranian living in Italy, the emotional toll extended to her six-year-old son.

“I try very hard not to let my son see the painful images—bodies piled together in black bags,” she said. “But sometimes I can’t hide my grief or my tears.”

Her son keeps asking why she is crying.

“I don’t have an answer that makes sense to him,” she said. “And not being able to explain my feelings makes me feel even worse.”

Even after limited international calls were allowed, communication remained fragile. Calls were brief, unstable, and often cut off without warning. Some families waited days for a single connection.

Fear of surveillance shaped many conversations. Families resorted to coded language, wary that saying too much could endanger loved ones.

“When my parents finally called, we could only cry. We didn’t know what to say to each other,” said Leila, a London-based Iranian expat. “We both knew about the massacre, but we couldn’t talk about it because there was every reason to believe our conversation wouldn’t stay private.”

“My mum said it had rained a lot there,” Leila recalled. “I knew she meant the bloodshed—not rain. It hadn’t rained at all.”

An open wound

For some, reconnection brought devastating news: learning days—or even weeks—later that relatives or friends had been killed, injured, or arrested.

“Today I saw the father of one of my child’s classmates at the school gate,” Germany-based mother Neda Soltani wrote on X. “He looked stunned. He burst into tears and said his cousin in Tehran had been killed—and he had only found out this morning.”

“Two Iranians stood there crying at the school gate,” she added. “Others just walked past.”

Farrokhi warns that without acknowledgement, safety, and the restoration of trust and communication, the psychological toll on the diaspora will continue to deepen.

“This is not just about grief,” she said. “It’s about living in a constant state of alarm—never knowing when the next rupture will come.”

Over four decades ago, we spent 444 days as prisoners in Iran for the crime of being American diplomats. One of us, Barry Rosen, was compelled at gunpoint to provide a “confession.” The captors kept John Limbert in solitary confinement for nine months and threatened him with a trial before a revolutionary kangaroo court.

We know firsthand how a terrified regime mistreats human beings it brands as “terrorists,” “enemies,” or “foreign agents,” in a never-ending effort to hold on to power at all costs. We witness daily tragedy for our Iranian friends and recall our own experience forty-seven years ago with Iran’s self-serving rulers.

Can the American government help Iranians face down the thousands of armed forces on the streets? Can we help without repeating the costly tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The president has promised Iranians that “help is on the way.” What help? What form of American support would allow Iranians to breathe after forty-seven years of theocratic authoritarianism? And what help would keep the country from descending into anarchy, as happened in Iraq in 2003, or falling victim to a new and more brutal regime, as happened in Iran after 1979?

As Americans, we should be proud of our record of providing a haven to those fleeing persecution. We have seen how Iranian-American friends and relatives were forced to flee their beloved homeland and become refugees in search of safety. Many of these same Iranian refugees have become outstanding scientists, physicians, lawyers, teachers, artists, and entrepreneurs in their adopted country.

We are alarmed by reports that the Trump administration is now deporting Iranian asylum seekers and other vulnerable Iranian nationals in ways that evade scrutiny, placing them on charter flights from the United States to Qatar or Kuwait and then sent onward to Tehran.

This dubious action is a strategic and moral blunder of the highest order. If we want to help, we must stop the deportations and show that we support those brave Iranians confronting their brutal rulers.

For decades, the United States has recognized a core principle of refugee protection rooted in both domestic law and the post-World War II international order it helped build: we do not return people to countries where they face persecution, torture, or death. When the destination is the Islamic Republic of Iran, the risk is not theoretical. It is profound and well documented.

The US State Department has designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. The Islamic Republic has a long record of arbitrary detention, coerced confessions, and political punishment of ethnic and religious minorities, journalists, lawyers, writers, musicians, students, filmmakers, women’s rights activists, and anyone else who asks inconvenient questions.

Returning people to that system does not send help to those fighting a murderous regime. It hands Tehran an unearned victory, supplying leverage, propaganda, and human capital to a government that has perfected the use of hostages and forced confessions as instruments of state power.

Supporters of these removals argue that deportation is simply the execution of US immigration law. But asylum seekers are, by definition, telling US authorities that they fear their own government. In Iran, an asylum claim can be interpreted as collaboration with foreign enemies, propaganda against the state, spying, apostasy, acting against national security, or the catch-all charge of “making war against God.”

Iranians have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed for all these accusations—and often for nothing at all.

History offers sobering parallels. In the 1980s, the United States returned Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum seekers to governments engaged in widespread political violence and death-squad activity. Many deportees were later killed or disappeared. Officials at the time rationalized these deportations as “lawful and necessary.” They were neither and are now broadly recognized as grave moral and strategic failures that damaged US credibility.

The United Kingdom made a similar mistake in the early 2000s when it cooperated with Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya to deport dissidents. British officials relied on diplomatic assurances that returnees would be treated humanely. Instead, some were imprisoned and tortured. Years later, British courts ruled the practice unlawful, and the government was forced to reckon publicly with the consequences of secrecy and misplaced trust in an authoritarian regime.

The scale of the current situation also matters. Initial reporting referenced roughly 400 individuals identified for removal; subsequent reporting suggests the number at risk could be significantly higher.

Meanwhile, independent estimates indicate that thousands have been killed in Iran in recent months. Whatever the precise number of deportees, the precedent being set is appalling. Normalizing indirect removals to Tehran through US allies in the region signals that the United States is willing to look away from what happens next.

Most troubling is how little information is available. Basic questions remain unanswered, including who, precisely, our government is deporting, what screening standards are being applied, what access to legal counsel exists, and what assurances, if any, have been received from Iran or third countries.

That organizations such as the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund have had to resort to Freedom of Information Act requests simply to understand the contours of this policy underscores the secrecy involved. And secrecy is where abuse takes root.

Our argument is for moral clarity and strategic seriousness.

A government that encourages Iranian protesters and warns Americans about Iran’s hostage-taking and coercion cannot, at the same time, deliver vulnerable people into the machinery of repression. A nation that still remembers 1979 and what followed should not supply the Islamic Republic with a new pool of captives, especially people who came here believing their search for safety would be handled with care and compassion.

Congress should demand immediate answers, and the administration should halt removals to Iran and allow transparent review. Our government must keep its promises, observe both law and morality, and guarantee meaningful access to asylum and withholding protections. What appears to be an arbitrary and cruel process should be subject to immediate, independent oversight.

The United States is strongest when it refuses to outsource its conscience to regimes that have none.