Urgent Statement: Threats of war crimes and genocide in Iran must face accountability

The incitement to war crimes and genocide via social media posts from the President of the United States have reached nearly unbelievable levels: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he posted today, including an 8pm EDT deadline, just one day after a similar, equally disturbing posts by both the US and Israeli officials. The world is witnessing – and subjected to – this escalating rhetoric. This language is very real, and not just theatrics. This American president has gotten away with this level of violence, often diminished as showmanship, for years. Now, we all face the atrocities. 

These threats come as attacks on infrastructure continue, including, today, with hits and warnings on railways systems of Iran by Israel. 

We must remember that under international law, both what is said and what is done carry legal consequences. There is a real, defined boundary between lawful state conduct and international crimes.

Legal Implications

Rhetoric and Incitement: Statements threatening to “destroy a whole civilization” “back to the Stone Ages,” or eliminate a national population cannot be merely seen as hyperbolic political speech. Under international law, such language may constitute prohibited incitement:

• The Genocide Convention criminalizes direct and public incitement to commit genocide, even where no act is ultimately carried out.
• Rhetoric advocating the destruction of a national, ethnic, or civilian population may also give rise to liability for crimes against humanity, particularly where it contributes to a broader pattern of conduct.
• The UN Human Rights Council concluded that statements by Israeli leaders about Gaza, such as former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s threat to “eliminate everything,” which parallels Trump’s recent statements, constituted punishable incitement to genocide. 

Prohibited Actions Under the Laws of War: Carrying out threats to strike civilian infrastructure would violate core, non-derogable rules of international humanitarian law:

• Distinction (Geneva Conventions; Additional Protocol I): Civilians and civilian objects may not be made the object of attack. Critical infrastructure such as power systems, water and desalination facilities, hospitals, bridges, universities, and communications networks, are civilian and protected. Unless irrefutably proven not. 
• Special Protection of Medical and Survival-Critical Systems: Medical facilities and objects indispensable to civilian survival, including water, electricity, and, increasingly, digital communications, enjoy heightened protection. Their protection is not negated by broad or unverified claims; loss of protection requires strict, demonstrable conditions and remains exceptional.
• Civilian Dependence on Technology and Connectivity: In contemporary conditions, internet access and communications infrastructure are integral to civilian safety, access to information, emergency response, and the ability to seek assistance. The destruction of infrastructure required for connectivity of these systems compounds humanitarian harm and isolation. Iranians are already under a blackout by IRI, and these threats look to destroy the base that would allow for a reconnection. 
• Proportionality: Attacks that foreseeably cause widespread civilian harm, especially through the degradation of essential services, are prohibited where that harm is excessive in relation to any concrete and direct military advantage.

Accountability Under Pressure: Recent actions targeting international accountability mechanisms raise additional legal concern and laid the groundwork for the impunity of today. The Trump administration’s threats directed at the International Criminal Court, including sanctions, political pressure, and efforts to delegitimize or criminalize its work following investigations related to Gaza, have risked undermining the enforcement of international law itself – and reshaped the perception of accountability systems. International law often suffers from an "enforcement gap" especially in the MENA region. Laws define the crimes, but the political will and power of the UN Security Council, the ICC, and international community determines the actual consequences.

When accountability institutions are weakened, the practical effect is to expand impunity for state officials who are implicated in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.

International law governs both the language that signals mass harm and the actions that would carry it out. It depends on credible, independent enforcement. The global community bears a responsibility to resist regressive measures that shield state actors from scrutiny. Accountability must be applied consistently, including to the most powerful states, or it ceases to function as law.

On the Ground in Iran

People in the country are still living their lives, surviving the psychological and physical violence, knowing that they will be their own saviors.  Human chains have been created around infrastructure as people perform art and sit in protest to block actions against infrastructure. It is a real testament to the resilience of a nation that has continued to survive these months, years, decades of tyranny. 

They are still living. They go to their doctor’s appointments. Those who can still go to work. They try to go about their day all the while witnessing their bridges, universities, infrastructure, and histories decimated. 

Iranians are worried about tomorrow and THE deadline in the most basic terms: will there be gas or water or electricity? There is no access to anything without those essentials, let alone the internet or phone calls. Atrocities are easier to commit in darkness. We are told there is bread rationing and shortages in some places. 

Hospitals and emergency rooms are preparing and prioritizing for the worst case scenarios – moving the most urgent cases and establishing use of generators. Many are creating mutual aid networks for the most in need, from orphanages, to those left houseless and under rubble. 

The most vulnerable – migrants, children, manual workers, and people with disabilities and illnesses – are already the most impacted and killed, and are most at risk from the impacts of the bombs that may continue to come.

People are still under the Iranian government’s cruel internet blackout, now into its 39th day and finding whatever workarounds they can. Some are spending up to 15% of their earnings for these workarounds – from Starlink to very risky and very pricey VPNs and configs. Others relay a message through someone who knows someone until it reaches their loved ones. Still others use international and expensive calling cards to reach family to let them know they are alive or get news from the outside. 

Many are melding old-school offline methods with online workarounds. People are using Bluetooth-mesh messaging such as Bitchat , while activists in Iran’s free-software community prepared Delta Chat. Others have been using tools like Orbot to anonymize their traffic through the Tor network, allowing them to slip past firewalls undetected. 

Without any warning systems for missile and bomb attacks, people rely on each other. Some use tools like Mahsa Alert — the offline crowdsourced strike-warning and safety-mapping app built by digital-rights volunteers — which is now used daily by over 100,000 people to plot impact zones, hospitals, and safe routes, even when the internet is completely dark. And others use Telegram channels with news and reports of strikes. Then you have the platforms like the DUTA project that can broadcast text-only information to their audience in heavy censorship/regional shutdowns. 

During the communication blackouts, domestic platforms such as Rubika, Eitaa, and Bale have remained among the few communication channels still accessible on the national network. Some use these platforms to pass along local safety information, while activists can repurpose them for hyper-local coordination. These apps carry major surveillance risks since they are government-controlled or government-aligned and can be monitored. Most have told us that Bale, in particular, still allows some limited communication, including with people outside Iran if they have Iranian SIM cards. But those who use it are extremely careful and do so in coded ways. 

At a moment when civilians rely on infrastructure not only for survival but for connection to the outside world, the convergence of incendiary rhetoric, information isolation, and threats to essential systems raises acute legal concerns. At the same time, efforts to weaken institutions like the International Criminal Court erode our routes but do not completely annihilate them. We must push back on every stage, and in every room and message.

Beyond the US and Iran

Iranian retaliation that impacts civilian infrastructure, particularly in the Gulf, could also amount to serious violations of international law and potential war crimes. These actions impacted civilians, especially migrant workers. To date, at least 12 are dead in the UAE, 7 in Kuwait, 2 in Bahrain, 2 in Oman, and 2 in Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, the war is being used to suppress witness testimony and dissent across the region. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights says authorities are using the conflict as a pretext to stifle free speech and target journalists, bloggers, and online activists. It reports hundreds of detainees in Bahrain and Qatar for filming or circulating videos. There have been dozens of arrests in the UAE, where those prosecuted over war-related posts or photographs can face up to ten years in prison under cybercrime and counter-terror laws. 

Skyline similarly documents sweeping criminalization of filming and resharing strike footage across Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. They warn that whatever impact these measures have on disinformation, they also erase civilian evidence that is often essential for accountability. 

Israel’s military censor has also tightened controls: CJR reports that it bars publication of the locations of successful Iranian strikes on military targets and that, in practice, its powers can reach almost everything. 

In the United States, NSPM-7 directs Treasury, IRS, DOJ, DHS, and the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to intensify financial surveillance, referrals, and domestic-terrorism investigations. This could collapse protected protest into “political violence.” Since the memo explicitly prioritizes conduct such as rioting, trespass, and civil disorder while targeting nonprofits, activists, and donors, it could readily be turned against anti-war protest or civil disobedience. 

In that same climate, the administration said this week that it is working to revoke the visas or green cards of 3,000-4,000 Iranian nationals with the use of ICE enforcement for alleged links to the Iranian government. Just this week, a US satellite firm announced that it would black out war images from Iran and the region, in compliance with a request from the Trump administration. 

The consequences of what we allow today affects us all. We must have accountability for illegal rhetoric and actions alike, and ensure the normalization of violence upon the Global Majority is dismantled from its core. As the families of our team members and our community itself are impacted, we must remember: We are all vulnerable.