Ashraf Zadshir, MD
Medicine rests on a foundational moral principle: physicians must treat the injured without fear, discrimination, or coercion. This principle known as medical neutrality is not aspirational; it is codified in international law, professional ethics, and the collective conscience of the medical profession. Yet during Iran’s uprisings, particularly since 2019, this principle has been systematically violated. Physicians have been punished not for political activism, but for fulfilling their most basic ethical duty: saving lives. As a physician, I write not as a political actor, but as a member of a profession under attack.
Medicine Under Repression
During periods of mass protest in Iran, hospitals and emergency departments have repeatedly been transformed into extensions of the security apparatus. Armed forces have been stationed inside medical facilities. Injured demonstrators, many suffering from gunshot wounds have avoided hospitals out of fear of arrest. Those who sought care were often detained directly from hospital beds and transferred to detention centers rather than recovery wards.
Medical records were reportedly used to identify protesters. Physicians were pressured to report patients, violate confidentiality, or refuse care. In some cases, ambulances were intercepted, and injured individuals were taken directly to prison, where torture and denial of medical care led to preventable deaths. These are not isolated allegations. They represent a pattern of deliberate criminalization of medical care.
Most recently, during the ongoing January 2026 protests, Iranian security forces violently raided Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ilam Province, firing tear gas inside the facility and attempting to arrest injured protesters and the clinicians treating them. Similar attacks have been reported in Tehran hospitals, where security personnel have entered wards to detain patients and intimidate healthcare staff. These incidents highlight that the targeting of medical facilities and personnel continues unabated.
Physicians as Targets
The persecution of physicians during Iran’s uprisings marks a profound escalation. Doctors, nurses, and medical students have been interrogated, detained, tortured, and in some cases executed for providing medical assistance to injured protesters. Among them are documented cases such as Dr. Parisa Bahmani, Dr. Aida Rostami, Masoud Ahmadzadeh, Ailar Haghi, and Dr. Hamid Gharahassanlou, whose experiences illustrate that ethical medical practice itself can be construed as criminal.
The message to healthcare professionals is unmistakable: treat the wounded, and you risk imprisonment, torture, or death. This has created an atmosphere of terror within the medical community. Physicians have been forced to choose between their ethical obligations and personal safety. Some have fled the country; others remain silent. Many patients, meanwhile, have died because they were too afraid to seek care.
Violations of Medical Ethics and International Law
These actions constitute grave violations of established international norms, including:
- Medical neutrality under the Geneva Conventions
- The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Geneva
- The Declaration of Tokyo, which prohibits physician involvement in torture or cruel treatment
- United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics
- The right to health under international human rights law
Arresting physicians for treating patients, coercing breaches of confidentiality, militarizing hospitals, and misusing ambulances are internationally recognized crimes. No state has the authority to suspend medical ethics during political unrest.
The Silence of International Medical Institutions and the Global Medical Community
Despite the severity and persistence of these abuses, the response from international medical organizations has been muted. Where are the sustained, unequivocal condemnations? Where are independent investigations? Where are protective mechanisms for persecuted Iranian clinicians?
Silence in the face of such violations does not preserve neutrality, it erodes it. When global medical institutions fail to respond, they send a dangerous signal: that medical ethics are negotiable, and physician persecution can proceed without consequence.
International medical organizations possess both moral authority and institutional power. With that power comes responsibility. At a minimum, these bodies must:
- Publicly and unequivocally condemn the criminalization of medical care in Iran
- Launch independent investigations into abuses within hospitals and detention
centers - Advocate for the release and protection of detained healthcare workers
- Provide support, documentation, and asylum pathways for persecuted physicians
- Hold accountable national medical associations that collaborate with state
repression
Medical ethics does not end at national borders. They are universal or they are meaningless.
A Physician’s Appeal
History has shown that when authoritarian regimes collapse, documentation and moral clarity matter. The global medical community must decide whether it stood with persecuted physicians or whether it remained silent while healing was punished. When treating the wounded becomes a crime, neutrality is no longer an option. Silence becomes complicity.
As physicians, our loyalty is not to governments or ideologies, but to humanity itself. The defense of medical ethics in Iran is not an act of political intervention it is an act of professional self-preservation. If medicine cannot be practiced freely and ethically