Iran’s security apparatus sees organised, resilient activism, including by women, as a threat to its survival. The authoritarian regime tolerates no dissent. Anyone who speaks out or defends excluded groups is branded a criminal. Silencing society is the regime’s survival strategy.

Rather than solve problems, the regime eliminates whoever speaks out about it. Environmental activists are punished while the environmental harm they denounce continues. Lawyers defending people facing execution are suppressed while executions go ahead. Child rights organisations are shut down even as millions of children work on the streets. The same happens to women’s support centres. Even talking about poverty is treated as a crime.

In the past two months, dozens of students have been expelled from university for protesting. Trade union activity is criminalised too, with nurses, students, teachers and other workers detained for organising. Artists face the same treatment. Singer Parastoo Ahmadi was recently sentenced to 74 lashes for performing without the compulsory hijab, since both singing and appearing unveiled are forbidden for women in Iran.

Record numbers of executions are the ultimate act of violence against protesters. The Islamic Republic wants to repress in silence without facing scrutiny from international human rights bodies. Protest forces it to pay a political cost and answer for its actions, and this regime refuses to do either.

Fear silences activism and, with it, society’s voice. The result is a collapse of public trust and social capital, social apathy, brain drain and a society drained of people who care. The number of independent human rights lawyers in Iran has fallen in recent years because of the high price of defending protesters. Journalists self-censor in fear for their safety and livelihoods.

This latest wave of pressure on civil society traces back to the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, the nationwide protests of January 2026 that authorities crushed in a deadly crackdown, and the further war Israel and the USA launched on Iran in early 2026. After the 12-day war, a new law criminalised almost any communication with foreign media, imposing severe penalties for ‘espionage’. Sending a message or even retweeting now carries a heavy price. Using a Starlink satellite internet terminal at home can mean the death penalty or jail. Activists and journalists documenting human rights violations sank deeper into fear and silence.

The latest war has intensified the repression further. Executions under the pretext of national security have increased, while a society focused on survival has no longer been able to respond adequately to the crackdown. The war has also destroyed national infrastructure, pushed an already crisis-hit economy towards collapse, inflicted lasting psychological trauma and given the regime leverage to accelerate repression. As the country entered a state of emergency, civic, economic and labour demands lost priority, and the voices of nurses, teachers and workers went unheard for months. Schools and universities closed, a disruption that will have a lasting impact.

Internet shutdowns during conflict and social upheaval plunged 90 million people into an information blackout, cutting off communications that are vital in wartime and destroying businesses and livelihoods.

The war’s end, and the possibility that this agreement lifts sanctions, are positive for Iranian society. But the critical problem is that it ignores Iranian people’s rights. Over 1,600 people were executed in Iran in 2025 and over 700 were executed in the first half of 2026 alone. Thousands more were killed during the January uprising, alongside mass arrests and repression. While the world focuses on the USA-Iran agreement, suffocation and repression continue unabated in Iran. Ultimately, this war has led to an agreement that completely ignores Iranian people and their rights.

The end of the war, and any economic opening that follows, may give civil society breathing room to take further steps. But a sense of limbo and the trauma of repression and war still weigh on it. Civil society movements will continue in Iran, but new, practical paths are needed for them to succeed. Civil society must engage in purposeful planning and converge around networks to reduce costs and achieve more. But this isn’t easy, because the government violently silences even the smallest voices, and also because growing societal polarisation has dealt a serious blow to solidarity.

Despite everything, Iranian society isn’t passively waiting for a saviour. It has endured various forms of suppression for over four decades and has repeatedly expressed its discontent through the 1999 student movement, the 2009 Green Movement, the protests of December 2017 and November 2019, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022, and the January 2026 uprising. Violence and repression of civic freedoms have never meant the end of the movement.

Iran is a United Nations member and is theoretically bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has also been party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1975, yet respects none of its provisions. But because these instruments carry no enforcement mechanism, only monitoring bodies with no power to sanction non-compliance, international human rights efforts rarely go beyond statements, condemnations and expressions of concern, none of which are effective.

Documenting abuses and giving voice to society matters, but supporting Iranian civil society requires tangible, pragmatic steps that at least hold the Islamic Republic accountable, although at this point I don’t know if that’s even possible.