Rights body slams US-Israeli ‘organized massacre’ of 344 Iranian students, teachers

Iran's High Council for Human Rights has condemned the “organized massacre” of 344 Iranian students and teachers during the recent illegal war of aggression waged by the Unites States and the Israeli regime against the country.

In a statement released on Monday, the council expressed “deep regret and abhorrence” over the enemies’ criminal strikes on more than 80 schools, high schools, and educational centers in various Iranian provinces that martyred a total of 344 innocent students and teachers and injured hundreds more.

“The deliberate targeting of students and teachers in school environments not only blatantly violates Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child but also constitutes ‘organized massacre’ and ‘terrorizing the civilian population,’ aimed at paralyzing the education system and instilling fear and terror among Iranian families,” it added.

The rights body also said during the war the aggressor regimes targeted 30 universities and higher education centers across Iran, destroying 154 scientific sites and killing five prominent professors and more than 60 university students.

It said US-Israeli attacks on schools and universities constitute a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, a clear case of war crime, and a breach of multiple human rights principles, particularly the rights of the child. 

“These actions are in stark contradiction to fundamental regulations, including Article 52 of the First Additional Protocol to the Four Geneva Conventions (1977), which mandates absolute protection for civilian and educational facilities; Paragraph 2 of Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which designates intentional attacks on educational buildings—upon fulfillment of other conditions—as war crimes; as well as the 1954 Hague Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989),” it said.

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Meanwhile, the council emphasized that the silence of certain international institutions in the face of these atrocities is not acceptable amid worldwide denunciation of the war.

Reserving its right to pursue judicial accountability for terrorist US-Israeli strikes in international forums, the Islamic Republic urges the United Nations’ rights bodies to designate Zionist and American officials responsible for the atrocities as war criminals, it asserted.

Iran, it said, reserves its inherent right to self-defense, proportionate response, and full material and moral compensation.

The unprovoked US-Israeli aggression on Iran began on February 28 with airstrikes that assassinated senior Iranian officials and commanders.

On the first day of the war, US Tomahawk missiles struck Shajare Tayyebe Elementary School in Iran’s southern city of Minab, killing more than 170 children and teachers.

The Iranian armed forces unleashed 100 waves of successful retaliatory strikes against sensitive and strategic American and Israeli targets throughout the region.

On April 8, forty days into the war, a Pakistan-brokered two-week ceasefire went into effect but subsequent negotiations between Tehran and Washington failed to produce an agreement.

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