Launching the Iranian Archive to Support Future Accountability Efforts

Mnemonic is launching the Iranian Archive as a project forensically preserving 1.3 million pieces of open source digital information related to the violent crackdowns against civilians during the nationwide protests in Islamic Republic of Iran following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s morality police in September 2022. 

The Iranian Archive started at Mnemonic’s Rapid Response team in the Summer of 2023 with a coalition led by the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, in partnership with the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law, the Azadi Archive, the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law, and Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps. A team of journalists, supported by Civil Rights Defenders, have also contributed to the archive. With the expertise from these organizations and within Mnemonic, the Archive has been collecting, preserving, processing, and analyzing digital information documenting human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed against civilians throughout the nationwide protests which have been ongoing in Iran since 2022.

Building on the success of the Syrian, Yemeni, Sudanese, and Ukrainian Archives, the Iranian Archive aims to collect, preserve, process, and verify digital evidence to support accountability proceedings and investigations related to events in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Information collected as part of the Archive was shared to support an investigation into protest violence carried out by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI), an investigative body created by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the deteriorating situation of human rights in Iran, especially with respect to women and children. Furthermore, the Archive has also supported various in-depth investigations undertaken by members of the coalition. The Archive provided early analysis of open-source information identifying key violations committed over the protests, including the intentional blinding of protesters and bystanders, and the death of children taking part in the demonstrations.

In light of recommendations by the FFMI for states to exercise universal jurisdiction, including by opening structural investigations and tracking alleged perpetrators, Iranian Archive will continue to support future investigations and legal accountability efforts. To achieve this, the coalition and Mnemonic have recently launched a massive collaborative work with almost 80 researchers to organize the 1.3 million records preserved on Mnemonic’s in-house annotation platform. Meanwhile, the Archive will continue to collect and preserve new open source information, including relevant photos, videos, text, and their metadata in a manner ensuring the admissibility of qualified evidence. 

Due to security concerns, the Archive, the platform hosting preserved information, is only accessible by request. If you are working on accountability work related to the violent crackdowns against civilians during the nationwide protests beginning in 2022 in Iran, and want to access the Archive or specific information preserved, you can contact the international organizations listed above, or directly contact the project manager of the Iranian Archive at Mnemonic by kelly@mnemonic.org and c.c. to rapid-response@mnemonic.org. 

*Mnemonic is a non-profit organization which operates globally to help human rights defenders effectively use digital documentation of human rights violations and international crimes to support advocacy, justice, and accountability.