TEHRAN – A Tehran court has ordered the U.S. government to pay more than $22 billion in material, moral and punitive damages for Washington’s involvement in the deadly uprising that rocked Iran in 2022.
The verdict was detailed by Iran’s Ministry of Justice Spokesman Asghar Jahangir at a press conference on Tuesday, who said the verdict was reached after extensive hearings on complaints filed by the families of 607 victims, including those killed and injured in the 2022 uprising.
“This lawsuit targets the U.S. government, U.S. political and military officials, related agencies, and individuals who played a role in inciting and supporting the insurrection,” he said.
According to the judgment issued by Branch 55 of the Civil Court for International Relations of the Shahid Beheshti Judicial Complex, the United States intentionally provided financial resources, encouragement, and both material and moral support to the insurgents, an act the court deemed a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and contrary to international law.
The court held that Washington’s actions caused irreparable physical injury, severe emotional harm, and extensive economic and psychological harm to the plaintiffs and their families. In its ruling, the court invoked multiple Iranian legal frameworks, including the Civil Code, the Civil Liability Law, the Law Combating U.S. Human Rights Violations and Regional Adventurism, the Statutes Giving Jurisdiction to Civil Claims Against Foreign Countries, the Countering U.S. Counter-Terrorism Law, and the provisions mandating compensation for damages caused by U.S. actions.
The Iranian unrest of 2022 followed a consistent pattern seen over the past few decades in which public protests are manipulated into violence by Western and Israeli interference.
The trigger was the death of Mahasa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the public morals patrol on suspicion of violating the dress code. Amini was taken to a standard processing station in Tehran. Footage from the station shows her walking up to a female officer, having a brief conversation with her, and then losing consciousness and collapsing shortly after the officer leaves.
Amini died a few days later at the hospital due to a chronic illness that had resulted in brain surgery when she was a child. An official investigation, including the father’s bedside video testimony and a telephone intercept in which his brother said he had fainted “again,” found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Initially, protests in Tehran focused on the morality patrol unit, but authorities eventually disbanded the unit. However, as intelligence reports later showed, with direct intervention from Western and Israeli actors, the uprising escalated into a widespread violent riot that led to the deaths of at least 200 people, including 75 security forces.
A major factor in the violence was social media propaganda (primarily Mehta-owned Instagram) that appears to have deliberately targeted teenagers and young adults, who made up most of those arrested in the riots. These young people were taught online how to make homemade explosives, steal weapons from security forces, and set fire to public infrastructure.
The social media campaign was part of a broader political campaign in which Western officials regularly appeared to claim to “support Iranian women.” Their statements have resurfaced during Israel’s recent war in Gaza. The Gaza war continues to be a genocide in which the regime, with full support from the West, has killed more than 30,000 women and girls since October 2023. Western media and political leaders have also remained silent about the thousands of rapes committed against Palestinians over the past two years. Western countries also supported Israel when the Iranian government bombed Iran in June, resulting in the deaths of around 1,100 Iranians, many of them women and children.