ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A body of UN experts on Thursday called on Iranian authorities to end the escalating arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment and arbitrary executions of ethnic minorities, particularly Kurdish and Baluchi minorities.
“Iran’s ethnic minorities must be able to live in safety and dignity, free from discrimination,” the experts said in a UN press release, citing reports that “point to a significant increase in arbitrary arrests, and what appears to be politically motivated sentences, including against individuals from ethnic minorities, who are often arrested under broadly defined national security charges.”
“The 2025 law expanding the definition of espionage, as well as other broadly defined national security offences, such as ‘enmity against God (moharebeh),’ ‘spreading corruption on earth (Efsad-fil-Arz)’, and ‘armed rebellion against the foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran (baghi)’ have been used, especially against the Kurds, as a tool to repress dissent,” said the experts.
This comes as Iran accelerates its arbitrary detention and execution of citizens following protests in late December 2025 which quickly morphed into nationwide demonstrations in January across the country.
Iranian authorities detained thousands of individuals, subjecting many to torture and other ill-treatment aimed at extracting confessions in an effort to quell public dissent.
Those arrested include protesters, journalists, lawyers, activists and members of ethnic and religious minorities. Many have faced accusations of espionage, communicating with foreign media or providing information to enemy states - charges that can carry the death penalty.
UN experts identified the risk of detainees facing imminent execution as part of a broader pattern of systematic repression of Iran’s Kurdish and Baluch minorities, highlighting the death sentences imposed on two women - Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish humanitarian aid worker, and Varisheh Moradi, a member of the East Kurdistan Free Woman Society (KJAR) - both detained in August 2023.
They made an urgent appeal on behalf of four Kurdish individuals - Yousef Ahmadi, Raouf Sheikh Maroufi, Mohammad Faraji and Mohsen Eslamkhah - and a member of the Baluchi minority group - Farhad Baranzehi - who face imminent risk of execution following proceedings “marred by torture and forced confessions.”
Experts named in the report included Mai Sato, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and eight others who “remain in contact with Iranian authorities on these cases.”
Special Rapporteurs, independent experts, and working groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.
The press release cited that in 2026 alone, at least 24 members of the Baluch minority and 22 Kurds have been executed, noting “many more” at imminent risk of execution at the hands of a government whose processes lack transparency and fundamental due-process protections.
“Minorities, particularly those whose ethnic identity intersects with religious minority status, such as Sunni-Kurds and Yarsans, have been and continue to be targeted during periods of political and social unrest through narratives that portray them as threats to national security,” they said.
