When security forces opened fire on protesters during Iran’s 2022 uprising, Amnesty International did not stop at identifying the units present on the streets. Its 2026 investigation sought to determine where those units sat inside Iran’s security hierarchy, who exercised authority over them, how orders moved through the system and which officials possessed the power to control their operations.
Amnesty’s Architects of Atrocities investigation reconstructs command structures from county and provincial units through regional headquarters and national institutions. The organization says this work enabled it to identify 87 officials who warrant criminal investigation, including 62 security-force commanders and 25 Interior Ministry officials.
A Layered Machine
Amnesty identifies the IRGC and the Police Command of the clerical dictatorship, or FARAJA, as the two principal security forces responsible for the crimes it documented. Within FARAJA, it traces units including the Prevention Police, Assistance Cohorts and Special Cohorts. Within the IRGC, it maps operational divisions, provincial Security Cohorts and Basij battalions through provincial corps and regional headquarters. Both forces ultimately operate under the General Staff of the Armed Forces, which itself falls under the command of the Supreme Leader as commander-in-chief.
Amnesty explicitly tied its conclusion to leaked state records: “Leaked official documents analysed by Amnesty International further reveal that the attack was carried out pursuant to a state policy developed and implemented under the close control of senior officials and institutions, including ones at the highest levels of the state, and with their full authorization and financial support.”
The hierarchy extended below the provincial level. Amnesty found that IRGC provincial corps contained operational units and Basij structures reaching counties and neighborhoods, while FARAJA maintained national, provincial and county commands. Command-and-control centers known as MARFOUK were used to transmit orders and coordinate FARAJA operations. The report also examined uniforms, weapons, vehicles and unit insignia to connect forces appearing in videos and eyewitness accounts with particular organizational units.
Alongside these vertical military and police structures, Amnesty reconstructed a parallel system of security councils. The Supreme National Security Council operated at national level; the State Security Council, headed by the interior minister, dealt with domestic security; and provincial and county security councils were headed by governors. Amnesty summarized the system this way: “Operating under the General Staff of the Armed Forces, these security forces implemented strategies which were formulated by security councils at national, provincial and county levels and enforced by the minister of interior and their representatives at sub-national levels, namely provincial and county governors.”
Amnesty International’s new landmark 1000+page report exposes how the Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity to crush the 2022 Woman Life Freedom uprising and identifies 87 officials who should be criminally investigated.
Amnesty International is calling for… pic.twitter.com/NVcQvsHMl9
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) September 16, 2026
Orders Traveled Down
Leaked documents gave Amnesty evidence of how this structure operated during the uprising. The report examines six orders issued at different levels, including by the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the interior minister as head of the State Security Council, the FARAJA commander in Mazandaran province and the commander of the IRGC Corps of Greater Tehran.
One General Staff order issued on September 21, 2022, was transmitted through FARAJA’s MARFOUK command-and-control system from the national level down to counties, entered into local police records and implemented by county forces. Amnesty found that the system did not merely establish formal positions on an organizational chart: instructions could be transmitted, monitored and implemented through an operational hierarchy.
The report’s conclusion was explicit: “Amnesty International considers that, given the totality of the evidence, these orders provide proof of a functioning chain of command where effective control is exercised throughout.” One leaked MARFOUK document from Mazandaran provided an especially stark example. It recorded an order from provincial FARAJA commander Morteza Mirzaee instructing forces to “respond mercilessly and go as far as causing death.” Amnesty cautioned that it did not possess comparable documents from every province and treated it as one documented example of a deadly order and of how commands could travel through the FARAJA system.
Most of these officials remain in positions of authority enabling them to unleash further deadly repression in Iran. This impunity emboldened the authorities to unlawfully kill thousands more protesters between 8 and 9 Jan 2026. 2/2
https://t.co/ddbWITeTzT pic.twitter.com/LbMPdHpTLq— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) September 21, 2026
Control, Not Titles
Amnesty’s investigation did not assume that holding a senior title automatically established responsibility. Its analysis focused instead on what international criminal law calls “effective control”: whether commanders actually possessed the material ability to direct subordinates, prevent crimes, stop them or refer perpetrators for investigation.
For the 62 security-force commanders examined under the doctrine of superior responsibility, Amnesty considered powers to issue orders, control weapons and ammunition, allocate financial resources, appoint or remove personnel, evaluate performance and initiate investigations or disciplinary measures. The organization also examined reporting systems to determine whether information about operations and the conduct of subordinate forces travelled upward through the hierarchy.
Amnesty stated its finding in full: “Based on the information and evidence presented in Chapter 10 and throughout this report, Amnesty International has reasonable grounds to believe that these commanders’ formal authority entailed effective control over the subordinate forces which perpetrated crimes against humanity on the ground, giving them the material ability to prevent or repress the commission of such crimes or to submit the matter to the competent judicial or other authorities.”
The Interior Ministry side of the structure was treated differently. Amnesty examined 25 officials—including the interior minister, his deputy, provincial governors and county governors—principally through possible aiding and abetting rather than superior responsibility. It cited their roles in security councils, transmitting directives, coordinating operations, mobilizing resources and providing administrative and logistical support. Amnesty says further evidence could justify examining other forms of responsibility as well.
Impunity for the crimes against humanity committed in 2022 emboldened the Iranian authorities to commit further atrocities.
Thousands were killed during nationwide protests on 8 and 9 January 2026, over 3,000 by the authorities’ own admission.
Demand International Justice for…
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) September 16, 2026
The investigation therefore transforms the generic description “security forces” into a multi-level institutional map. It follows forces from the scene of killings to their organizational units, then upward through county, provincial and regional structures to national commands, while also tracing the security councils and Interior Ministry bodies coordinating policy and operations.
The report establishes that the forces on Iran’s streets did not operate in an institutional vacuum. They belonged to formal hierarchies through which orders, resources, information and authority moved—and those hierarchies extended from local units to the highest levels of the state.