Open source information plays crucial role in identifying international crimes carried out by Islamic Republic of Iran

3 weeks ago

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Today the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to extend the mandate of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI), ensuring the FFMI’s critical investigative work documenting abuses perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) against civilians will not only continue, but expand.

Many of the FFMI’s findings have been confirmed through independent digital investigations conducted by a group of academic institutions and civil society organizations collectively known as the Iran Digital Archive Coalition, which has been using public information to document the IRI’s brutal crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The Coalition has released two new reports, the latest in an ongoing series, which offer additional evidence that international crimes have been perpetrated in Iran, and demonstrate how digital open source information can support future legal accountability:

Given significant access restrictions and credible threat of reprisals within Iran, digital open-source information has proven crucial to inform their investigations and corroborate findings obtained through more traditional sources, such as interviews with victims and witnesses.

In addition to providing broader context, the reports chronicle the stories of 20 people who were subjected to multiple human rights violations and persecuted because of their perceived affiliation with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The information about these violations was shared online by witnesses and protestors in an effort to share information about the violent crackdown to the international community. This content — which documented abductions, gender-based beatings, killings, and more — was then collected and verified by the Coalition.

Launched in late 2022, the FFMI concluded in March 2024 that the IRI had perpetrated international crimes against humanity in the context of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. In its March 2025 report, the FFMI found that the IRI has continued its violent and systematic repression of protestors, and has ramped up the use of technology and surveillance to crush dissent.

The Iran Digital Archive Coalition was formed in 2023 to investigate, analyze, and verify incidents reported online to ensure that information bravely shared by survivors and bystanders could be used as evidence to support the work of the FFMI and other investigative bodies. The work of the Iran Digital Archive Coalition continues to be instrumental in advancing this mission, ensuring that these atrocities are recognized and addressed. For the full series of reports, please visit the Coalition’s website.

For more information about these reports or the work of the Iran Digital Archive Coalition, please reach out to Maggie Andresen (UC Berkeley Human Rights Center) at mandresen@berkeley.edu or +1 845.608.4997.