The Secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters stated that indifference and ignoring America’s crime at the Minab school will be an indelible stain on the foreheads of human rights bodies and officials. He added that supporters of aggression against Iran are among the greatest violators of human rights.
On the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, targeted the soil of the Islamic Republic of Iran and launched a criminal campaign. This military aggression, which continues in violation of international and humanitarian law, has provoked widespread reactions around the world.
In this regard, Nasser Seraj, Deputy for International Affairs of the Judiciary and Secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters, spoke with Mizan news agency about the measures taken to pursue legal action and hold accountable those responsible for the aggression against Iranian soil and the crimes committed against the Iranian people. Full text of the interview follows:
Please share your initial thoughts on the recent crimes committed in Iran as a result of U.S. and Zionist aggression.
First, I would like to offer my condolences to the owner of this land, Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance), and to the noble people of Iran for the savage attacks by the criminal Zionist regime and the United States, which resulted in the martyrdom of the great and beloved Leader of the Islamic Revolution, several commanders, and Iranian citizens.
The joint aggression by the criminal Zionist and American regimes against the soil of the Islamic Republic of Iran — carried out in the middle of negotiations — once again proved to everyone that negotiation and other peaceful methods of resolving differences are merely pretexts used by these two regimes to justify their crimes against the Iranian nation.
How do you evaluate the actions of these two regimes within the framework of international law principles?
The usurping Zionist regime, in cooperation and partnership with the criminal American regime, has set its mind on destroying the already ailing and half-dead body of international law and human rights.
In the recent aggressions by these two criminal regimes against Iran, hardly any of the fundamental rules of human rights and humanitarian law have been left unviolated.
The core principles of international humanitarian law — including distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality, necessity, and precaution — have been violated so comprehensively and brazenly by these two regimes in Iran that it seems as if humanitarian law never existed.
The current U.S. administration, under the racist slogan “America First,” has trampled upon all moral, human, and legal relations and foundations of the international community. By fully cooperating with the child-killing and genocidal Zionist regime — whose hands are stained with the blood of more than 80,000 innocent people in Gaza — it has become a facilitator for this criminal regime on the international stage.
The blind attacks by these two regimes on Iran, especially the strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, violate which categories of human and international rules?
In this context, the fundamental human rights of the Iranian nation are being systematically violated more than in any other area by American-Zionist terrorist elements.
The criminal leaders of these two regimes, who launched territorial aggression against Iran under the false promise of “freeing the Iranian people,” targeted a primary school in Minab on the very first day of their savage attacks. As a result, 168 innocent students aged 7 to 12 were martyred, and dozens of other children were injured.
There is no doubt that the deliberate targeting of children in an educational environment constitutes a flagrant and obvious violation of the fundamental principles and rules of international law, international humanitarian law as enshrined in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols — especially the principles of distinction and proportionality — as well as human rights standards, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and basic humanitarian and ethical principles.
The dimensions of this savage crime have been so heart-wrenching and extensive that they have terrified other children and wounded the feelings of the Iranian public and global public opinion. Indifference and ignoring this crime by human rights bodies and officials will be an indelible stain on their foreheads that will never be erased.
What has been the reaction of international mechanisms to this tragedy?
Although some international human rights mechanisms, such as the United Nations Children’s Fund or certain special rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, have referred to the condemnation of this crime, it is clear that such condemnations will have little effect unless accompanied by strong monitoring and remedial tools.
Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that international mechanisms — and even many governments around the world — are today hostages or captives of these two criminal and arrogant regimes.
In other words, these two regimes have moved beyond merely using these mechanisms as tools and have now resorted to intimidating and threatening them. Threats and sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court in the case against Netanyahu, as well as repeated threats by these two regimes against the Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, are clear examples of their violation of the mandates of international mechanisms.
How do you assess the role of other governments in achieving the goals of these two regimes?
It is obvious that free governments and nations have never and will never accept the justification or support of the criminal actions of these two regimes. It is sufficient to look at the positions of governments such as South Africa, which has filed a case at the International Court of Justice over the Zionist regime’s genocide, or Spain, which has consistently opposed the crimes of these two regimes.
In this context, Iran’s friendly and brotherly neighboring countries have also consistently taken respectful positions in opposition to the criminal actions of these two regimes.
However, the supporters of these two regimes — who, out of fear or imperialistic and supremacist tendencies, have maintained a deafening silence in the face of their crimes — should not be overlooked. These supporters, mostly European and Western governments, are the greatest violators of human rights principles and the most instrumental users of human rights. Through these worn-out games, they have removed themselves from global equations and turned themselves into tools in the hands of these two criminal regimes. At the same time, they have emptied human rights mechanisms of meaning and rendered them ineffective.
Compare only the crime at the Minab school — the massacre of 168 schoolgirls — with the death of a girl in 2022. The false claimants of human rights created such an uproar and acted as if they were “more caring than a mother” over the regrettable death of the late Mahsa Amini (an incident about which the martyred Leader of the Revolution repeatedly expressed regret and described himself as mourning). They convinced affected mechanisms in the international arena to form a so-called fact-finding mission on events in Iran.
In contrast, in the face of the recent savage attack on the Minab school and the killing of 168 elementary schoolgirls, they have maintained such silence as if the rights of children, women’s rights, the right to life, the right to security and peace, the right to education, and many other human rights — which they have always used to criticize Iran — never existed at all.
The dual and racist approach of these false claimants of human rights has become so disgusting that it must be loudly declared: criminals and supporters of human rights violations like them have no right to participate in human rights mechanisms, make decisions for these monitoring bodies with blood-stained hands, or vote on human rights issues.
What is the Human Rights Headquarters’ plan for pursuing these crimes?
The Human Rights Headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while expressing deep sympathy with the grieving families and the noble people of Iran, declares that it will pursue the legal follow-up of these crimes through the relevant legal channels at national, regional, and international levels. It calls on the international community to act responsibly, transparently, and without discrimination in the face of these human tragedies.