Security Forces Block Medical Care During Iranian Hospital Raids

Armed Iranian security agents stormed hospitals during recent protests, preventing doctors from treating wounded demonstrators and seizing patients. Medical professionals describe unprecedented interference with healthcare, including blocking emergency treatment and arresting dozens of healthcare workers.

BEIRUT (AP) — During last month’s violent suppression of anti-government demonstrations in Iran, armed security personnel interfered with medical treatment at hospitals overwhelmed with injured protesters, according to healthcare workers who witnessed the events.

A physician working in the northern city of Rasht described attempting to save a man in his 40s who had sustained a gunshot wound to the head at point-blank range. Armed plainclothes officers physically prevented medical staff from reaching the patient, using their weapons to push healthcare workers away.

“They surrounded him and didn’t allow us to move further,” the doctor in the northern city of Rasht said.

The patient died within minutes as security agents prevented resuscitation efforts. Officers then placed the body in a black bag and loaded it with other deceased victims into a vehicle before departing.

Such incidents occurred repeatedly across multiple Iranian cities during early January, as security forces fired on crowds to suppress widespread demonstrations against the nation’s 47-year-old government. Plainclothes agents flooded medical facilities treating thousands of wounded protesters, monitoring and sometimes preventing patient care, intimidating medical personnel, arresting protesters, and removing bodies. Authorities detained dozens of physicians.

The Associated Press compiled this report through interviews with three Iranian doctors and six medical professionals living overseas who maintain contact with colleagues in Iran, along with human rights organization reports and verification of more than twelve social media videos. All physicians in Iran requested anonymity due to fears of government retaliation.

Working with Berlin-based organization Mnemonic, the AP identified online videos, posts and additional material documenting hospital violence.

Medical professionals both inside Iran and abroad described the level of violence and militarization of healthcare facilities as unprecedented, even for a nation with decades of experience suppressing dissent and monitoring public institutions. In at least one case, snipers positioned on a hospital rooftop in the northern town of Gorgan fired at patients attempting to approach the facility, according to witness testimony provided by IIPHA, a U.S.-based association of Iranian healthcare professionals.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Center has documented numerous hospital incidents involving security agents preventing medical treatment, disconnecting patients from ventilators, harassing physicians and detaining protesters.

“It is systematic,” said Amiry-Moghaddam, an Iranian-Norwegian neuroscientist who founded the group. “And we have not experienced this pattern before.”

Government officials have attributed the protests and resulting violence to armed foreign-supported “terrorists.”

Health Ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour rejected reports of prevented treatment or patient removal from hospitals, calling them “untrue, but also fundamentally impossible.” State media quoted him saying all injured received treatment “without any discrimination or interference over political opinions.” Iran’s United Nations mission did not respond immediately to requests for comment regarding the physicians’ testimonies.

The suppression campaign, which peaked on January 8 and 9, marked the most lethal crackdown since the Islamic Republic’s establishment in 1979. Complete casualty figures and other details have emerged slowly due to government-imposed internet restrictions.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency reports confirming over 7,000 deaths while investigating thousands more. Government officials have acknowledged more than 3,000 fatalities, though authorities have historically undercounted or failed to report casualties from previous unrest.

Once the crackdown commenced, the Rasht physician said he endured 66 hours of continuous work, moving daily between different facilities to assist with wounded patients — initially a trauma center, then a hospital, and finally a private clinic.

On January 8, “every 15 to 30 minutes, the entire emergency ward would be emptied and then refilled with new patients,” the doctor said.

Conditions deteriorated on January 9, as live ammunition wounds became more frequent and security agents grew increasingly threatening.

Officers brought wounded protesters to facilities and monitored them during treatment, the physician said. They forced their way into wards carrying automatic weapons, threatening staff, filming patients and examining identification documents.

During patient discharge, he said, “they would take anyone who was confirmed to be a protester.”

At one point, security agents delivered the corpse of a deceased man with shackled hands. The body showed pellet wounds to the abdomen and chest plus a clear bullet wound to the head, according to the doctor.

He immediately recognized the victim. Moments earlier, the man’s family had been circulating his photograph throughout the hospital, inquiring whether he had been admitted.

Amnesty International has received credible reports of targeted, close-range shootings of protesters occurring “at a far greater scale” than in previous protest crackdowns, according to the organization’s Iran researcher Raha Bahereini. Two AP-verified videos show protester bodies with close-range gunshot wounds and connected medical equipment.

The physician said he and colleagues attempted to protect wounded protesters by falsifying hospital records. Gunshot wounds to the abdomen were documented as abdominal pain; fractures were recorded as falling accidents. One patient shot in the genitals was listed as a urology case.

“We knew that no matter what we did for the patients, they wouldn’t be safe once they stepped out of the hospital,” he said.

The AP could not independently verify the physician’s account of Rasht hospital events, though it aligned with other AP reporting.

The AP confirmed videos from four hospitals showing Iranian security forces’ activities. Mnemonic collected dozens of videos, posts and testimonies indicating forces were present at nine hospitals, sometimes firing weapons and tear gas. Since 2022, Mnemonic has preserved digital evidence of Iranian human rights violations, creating archives containing over 2 million documents with partners.

One AP-verified video shows security agents smashing glass entrance doors at Imam Khomeini Hospital in the western city of Ilam, then charging through corridors with weapons while shouting at people.

The Health Ministry told state media it was investigating the incident, stating its commitment to protecting medical centers, staff and patients.

Additional AP-verified videos show heavy security presence surrounding three Tehran hospitals, firing tear gas and pursuing protesters.

Other physicians operated secret treatment centers to care for wounded patients away from authorities.

On the evening of January 8, a 37-year-old general surgeon was dining in Tehran when he received a call from a professional colleague he hadn’t spoken with in years. The friend, an ophthalmologist, spoke vaguely, but the fear in her voice clearly indicated she urgently needed assistance. She provided an address.

Just before midnight, he drove to the location, a cosmetic procedure clinic. Inside, he discovered the lobby converted into a trauma ward, with over 30 wounded men, women, children and elderly people on couches and the blood-covered floor, shouting and crying.

The surgeon spent nearly four days there, treating an estimated 90 people as volunteers brought additional wounded. Initially, only he, the ophthalmologist, a dentist and two nurses were present.

He fashioned splints from cardboard boxes and soft metal pieces for broken bones. Without anesthesia or strong pain medications, he used weaker suppository analgesics. The clinic lacked blood supplies or transfusion equipment, so he administered IV fluids to rehydrate patients and raise blood pressure, a process requiring hours.

Phone lines were severed that night, and for 12 hours, he couldn’t request additional help. They couldn’t transfer patients to hospitals for fear of arrest.

One woman in her 30s had been struck by bird shot at close range, destroying her mouth’s roof and the areas around her nose and below her eyes, the surgeon recalled.

A young man in his 20s had been shot with live ammunition in his elbow, shattering it. The surgeon sutured the wounds but knew amputation would be necessary.

A four-member family – mother, father and their 8- and 10-year-old children – were all riddled with pellets, the surgeon said. The older boy had dozens of pellets in his face, but miraculously none struck his eyes.

On the morning of January 9, phone service resumed, and the surgeon contacted trusted physicians to refer patients. First, he had to remove all bullets and pellets from their bodies to prevent detention at hospitals. He wrote referral letters claiming the patients had been in automobile accidents.

The surgeon called three additional doctors to assist at the hidden clinic. When new wounded arrived, stabilized patients applauded and showed victory signs to them, he said.

“They started to make the atmosphere happy through their pain. … I just couldn’t believe that moment,” the surgeon said, his voice breaking. “It was so human.”

No wounded patients died at the clinic, though two bodies with head gunshot wounds were brought there, he said. The AP could not independently verify the surgeon’s account of clinic events.

Since January 9, at least 79 healthcare professionals have been detained, including twelve medical students, according to Homa Fathi, an Iranian dentist pursuing a Ph.D. in Canada and IIPHA member who has monitored Iranian government actions against health professionals since 2022. Many detainees were accused of resisting security agents’ orders or other charges related to providing medical care to protesters, Fathi said.

Approximately 30 have been released, mostly on bail, but many still face charges, including one accused of “waging war against God,” a charge carrying a death penalty, Fathi said. Authorities are also maintaining surveillance of some doctors at home to ensure they don’t receive or visit wounded protesters — an unprecedented level of control, she said.

The surgeon who treated protesters at the secret clinic said he was surprised security forces never raided that location to make arrests.

However, arrests have occurred since. Two healthcare workers who volunteered at the clinic were seized from their homes, the surgeon said.

“I am waiting, too.”