The Arrest of Doctors and Abduction of Wounded Protesters Reveal a Strategy of Erasing Evidence, Not Enforcing Law
When Saving Lives Becomes a Punishable Offense
A new wave of arrests targeting doctors and medical personnel across Iran has once again exposed the true function of the regime’s security apparatus: not law enforcement, but the suppression of truth. As nationwide protests escalate, the regime has turned hospitals and clinics into extensions of its repression machinery, criminalizing the treatment of wounded civilians.
This is not a series of isolated incidents or rogue actions. It is a deliberate policy aimed at eliminating witnesses to state violence—a strategy designed to ensure that the regime’s killings leave no trace, no testimony, and no survivors willing to speak.
Raids on Doctors, Fear in Hospitals
Security forces have raided the homes and workplaces of doctors who provided medical care to injured protesters. Many of these arrests were carried out with extreme violence, sending a clear message to the medical community: treating protest victims is an act of defiance.
Human rights activists inside Iran have repeatedly warned that doctors and healthcare workers are being targeted specifically for aiding wounded demonstrators. These arrests have occurred simultaneously in multiple cities, revealing a coordinated and centrally planned pattern of repression.
In one particularly chilling case, regime agents reportedly abducted a wounded young woman directly from her hospital bed, just hours after she had undergone surgery. She was taken away in critical condition. Such incidents have transformed medical centers into spaces of terror rather than healing.
Weaponizing Blood, Starving Civilians
Alongside arrests, reports have emerged of deliberate obstruction of blood supplies. Regime-controlled institutions have reportedly restricted access to blood banks, reserving supplies for centers affiliated with armed forces while denying them to civilian hospitals.
This policy has directly endangered the lives of injured protesters. It fits seamlessly into the broader framework of repression: deny treatment, intimidate doctors, and let fear finish the job that bullets began.
Ardabil, Qazvin, Mashhad: A Nationwide Pattern
After security forces discovered that some doctors were treating injured protesters free of charge, a new crackdown followed.
- In Ardabil, Dr. Ameneh Soleimani, a physician and clinic director, was arrested solely for admitting and treating protest victims. Human rights sources report that at least four additional doctors were also detained in the city.
- Khosrow Minaei, a volunteer medic who treated injured protesters in his home, was arrested on January 14, 2026. Witnesses reported severe beatings and the complete destruction of his house during the raid.
- In Qazvin, Dr. Alireza Golchini was arrested and charged with “enmity against God” (moharebeh)—a charge that carries the risk of execution and demonstrates the regime’s willingness to apply death-penalty offenses to medical professionals.
- Dr. Farhad Nadali, a faculty member at Golestan University of Medical Sciences, was detained after protesting the shooting of demonstrators. His current whereabouts remain unknown.
- In Mashhad, Babak Pouramin, an emergency medicine specialist, was arrested and transferred to Vakilabad Prison.
This is not security—it is collective punishment against conscience.
A Cynical Invitation to the Slaughter
In an almost grotesque contradiction, a deputy health minister of the regime publicly urged wounded protesters to seek medical treatment. On January 29, 2026, the state-affiliated Chand Saniyeh Telegram channel quoted the official as saying:
“The injured should not be afraid and should go to medical centers.”
He added that inspections would not occur if a different name was given, and that identity verification would only be required for insurance use—warning that delays in treatment could cause infections.
Presented as medical advice, these remarks collapse under the weight of lived reality. Years of documented arrests, interrogations, and disappearances following hospital visits have taught Iranians a brutal lesson: entering a hospital can be a direct path to prison, torture, or execution.
Hospitals Under Surveillance, Doctors Under Threat
Throughout Iran’s protests, security forces have been stationed inside hospitals. Medical staff operate under constant pressure from intelligence agencies. Families report that hospital visits have led to interrogations; some injured individuals have vanished entirely after receiving treatment.
In this climate, calling on wounded protesters to “seek treatment freely” is not just dishonest—it is a trap.
The Collapse of Medical Ethics Under Theocracy
The deputy minister’s statement stands as yet another document of the moral collapse of medicine under clerical rule. When treatment is offered only under conditions of secrecy and deception, structural criminality becomes undeniable.
In the regime’s system, the wounded are not patients—they are suspects. Doctors are not healers—they are targets. And hospitals are no longer sanctuaries, but hunting grounds.
This reality strips away the last pretense of governance and exposes the regime for what it is: a system that fears the truth so deeply that it must arrest those who try to save lives.
