Activists say Iran has aired nearly 100 coerced confessions from protesters, often after torture

JERUSALEM (AP) — They are shown handcuffed, their faces blurred. The confession videos, broadcast on Iranian state media, feature dramatic background music interspersed with clips appearing to show protesters attacking security forces. Some showcase gruesome homemade weapons that authorities claim were used in the attacks. Others highlight suspects in grainy security footage, appearing to set fires or destroy property.

Iran alleges these confessions, which often include references to Israel or America, are proof of foreign plots behind Iran’s nationwide protests. Activists say they are coerced confessions, long a staple of Iran’s hard-line state television, the only broadcaster in the country. And these videos are coming at an unprecedented clip.

Iranian state media has aired at least 97 confessions from protesters, many expressing remorse for their actions, since the protests began on Dec. 28, according to a rights group that is tracking the videos.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says that based on testimony from prior detainees, the confessions often come after psychological or physical torture — and can have serious consequences, including the death penalty.

“These rights violations compound on top of each other and lead to horrible outcomes. This is a pattern that’s been implemented by the regime time and time again,” said Skylar Thompson, the group’s deputy director.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not return a request for comment from The Associated Press. Iranian officials have described the protests as “riots” orchestrated by the United States and Israel. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said the violence must be foreign-influenced because Iranians would never set mosques on fire.

The nearly 100 confessions broadcast over just two weeks is unprecedented for Iran, Thompson said.

By comparison, from 2010 to 2020 there were around 350 forced confessions broadcast on state media, according to the activist groups Justice for Iran and the International Federation for Human Rights, the last major study compiled by activists. The rights group Together Against the Death Penalty said there were 40 to 60 confessions aired in 2025.

Additionally, Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty reported at least 37 televised confessions of people facing the death penalty in the weeks following the 2022 protests over the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab to the liking of authorities. More than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 detained during the monthslong protests and security crackdown, the last major protests in Iran.

A 2014 U.N. Special Rapporteur human rights report on Iran found that among interviews with previously detained individuals, 70% said coerced information or confessions were used in their hearings. In nearly half the cases, the trial lasted just a few minutes.

After the Amini protests, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in January 2023 strongly condemning “the Islamic Republic’s policy of forcing confessions using torture, intimidation, threats against family members or other forms of duress, and the use of these forced confessions to convict and sentence protesters.”

In 2024, Iran executed 975 people, the highest number since 2015, according to a report by the United Nations. Four of the executions were carried out publicly. Iran carries out executions by hanging. According to the U.N. report, most people in Iran are executed for drug-related offenses or murder.

In 2024, security-related offenses, such as espionage, accounted for just 3% of the executions.

Thompson said she is “gravely concerned” over a surge in executions connected to the latest protests, adding that many of the video confessions are serious security-related offenses that carry the death penalty.

Tehran is known to have executed 12 people for espionage since the 12-day war in June between Israel and Iran. The most recent execution for espionage was last week, when Iran said it executed a man who was accused of spying for Israel’s Mossad spy agency in exchange for cryptocurrency. The state-run IRNA news agency said the man confessed to the spying charges.

The use of televised, coerced confessions dates to the chaotic years after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. State TV aired confessions by suspected members of communist groups, insurgents and others. Even Mehdi Bazargan, Iran’s first prime minister after the revolution, warned at one point he could be detained and put on television, “repeating things like a parrot.”

Among coerced confessions that gained international attention was in 2009 by then-Newsweek correspondent Maziari Bahari, who was also imprisoned for several months. He directed a documentary, “Forced Confessions,” and wrote a memoir about his ordeal.

Since the protests began on Dec. 28, 16,700 people have been arrested and more than 2,000 have been killed, the vast majority protesters, according to Human Rights Activists News Agency. The organization relies on a network of activists inside Iran that confirms all reported fatalities.

The Iranian government has not released overall casualty figures for the demonstrations. The AP has been unable to independently assess the toll, given that the internet is now blocked in Iran.

Even before the protest movement exploded across the country, human rights organizations and Western governments have condemned Iran’s increasing use of capital punishment, particularly for political and espionage-related offenses. Activists argue that many of the convictions rely on coerced confessions, and that trials often take place behind closed doors, without access to independent legal representation.