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For Immediate Release
April, 07 2026, 04:22pm EDT
Contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566,After hours: +44 7778 472 126,Email:,press@amnesty.org
Iran: President Trump’s apocalyptic threats of large-scale civilian devastation demand urgent global action to prevent atrocity crimes
LONDON
Responding to the United States President Donald Trump’s statement about Iran on Truth Social on 7 April 2026, warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”, Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International said:
“President Trump’s very act of making such apocalyptic threats, including his warning of ending ‘a whole civilization’, reveals a staggering level of cruelty and disregard for human life. It becomes all the more terrifying when coupled with his explicit threats to directly attack civilian infrastructure by bringing about the ‘complete demolition’ of Iran’s power plants and bridges.
“International humanitarian law strictly prohibits direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. The US President’s threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people. It may constitute a threat to commit genocide, a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more defined acts ’with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.’
The US President’s threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people.
“The stakes could not be higher. The international community, including the UN Security Council, regional bodies and all states must urgently intervene to avert an impending catastrophe and unequivocally affirm that inciting, ordering or committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide entail individual criminal responsibility under international law.
“President Trump’s threats, coupled with escalating USA and Israeli attacks destroying civilian infrastructure, are terrorizing millions of people in Iran and their distressed relatives abroad as tens of millions of lives hang in the balance. We call for immediate action to stop unlawful attacks that would plunge an entire country into darkness and deprive millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living.
“In recent days, US and Israeli forces have attacked civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, universities, steel factories and petrochemical facilities, killing and injuring civilians, condemning the population to years, if not decades, of deepened economic hardship, inflicting serious harm on civilian health and the environment, and leaving long‑lasting damage to civilians’ lives and livelihoods.
“Intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure constitute war crimes under international law. Even in the limited cases that civilian infrastructure qualify as military targets, a party still cannot attack them if this may cause disproportionate harm to civilians. Power plants, water systems and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods. Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”
Background
In recent days, President Trump has repeatedly issued escalating threats against Iran’s energy and transport infrastructure, warning that unless the Iranian authorities reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would carry out the “complete demolition” of the country’s power plants and bridges. He also threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”.
On 5 April, President Trump warned that Iran could be “taken out in one night” and set a deadline of 8pm Eastern Time on 7 April for Iranian authorities to comply. He further vowed that every power plant and bridge in the country would be left “burning, exploding, and never to be used again”.
On 7 April, the Israeli military issued an overly broad warning to civilians in Iran to avoid trains and railway lines nationwide, stating that being near such infrastructure would “endanger your life”.
During the same period, USA and Israeli strikes across Iran struck bridges, petrochemical facilities and steel factories, killing and injuring civilians and heightening fears of widespread, unlawful attacks on essential civilian infrastructure.
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
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All Nations, World Bodies 'Must Urgently Intervene' to Stop Trump From Wiping Out Iran: Amnesty
The group's leader urged action to stop "attacks that would plunge an entire country into darkness and deprive millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living."
Apr 07, 2026
Amnesty International on Tuesday joined advocacy groups and political leaders around the world in calling for swift action to stop President Donald Trump from carrying out his genocidal threats against Iran, with the human rights group specifically putting pressure on all governments and the United Nations.
Trump gave Iran until 8:00 pm Eastern to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the country closed to most ship traffic after the United States and Israel abandoned diplomatic talks for war in February. The US president said on his Truth Social platform Tuesday that if the Iranian government doesn't comply, "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again."
The backlash was swift, with some US lawmakers calling on Trump's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office, as well as reminding American forces of their duty to disobey any ordered war crimes. As critics worldwide also condemned the president's comments, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Amir-Saeid Iravani pledged that Iran "will exercise, without hesitation, its inherent right of self-defense and will take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures."
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general, said in a statement that "Trump's very act of making such apocalyptic threats, including his warning of ending 'a whole civilization,' reveals a staggering level of cruelty and disregard for human life. It becomes all the more terrifying when coupled with his explicit threats to directly attack civilian infrastructure by bringing about the 'complete demolition' of Iran's power plants and bridges."
As Iranians put their bodies at risk on Tuesday by gathering at energy facilities and bridges in hopes of preventing their destruction, the watchdog group Beyond Nuclear warned that Trump could create a "fatal nuclear disaster" by attacking Iran's nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr.
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War similarly stressed in a joint statement that "the bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems."
More broadly, Callamard noted that "international humanitarian law strictly prohibits direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. The US president's threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people. It may constitute a threat to commit genocide, a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more defined acts 'with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.'"
Emphasizing that "the stakes could not be higher," the former United Nations special rapporteur argued that "the international community, including the UN Security Council, regional bodies, and all states must urgently intervene to avert an impending catastrophe and unequivocally affirm that inciting, ordering, or committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide entail individual criminal responsibility under international law."
UN leaders, including Secretary-General António Guterres, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, and special rapporteurs, have demanded an end to the regional war and a return to diplomatic talks. However, the United States has veto power at the Security Council. That has impeded the body's ability to respond to the US-Israeli threats and attacks, which, as Callamard highlighted, are already destroying civilian infrastructure and "terrorizing millions of people in Iran and their distressed relatives abroad as tens of millions of lives hang in the balance."
As Callamard detailed:
In recent days, US and Israeli forces have attacked civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, universities, steel factories, and petrochemical facilities, killing and injuring civilians, condemning the population to years, if not decades, of deepened economic hardship, inflicting serious harm on civilian health and the environment, and leaving long‑lasting damage to civilians' lives and livelihoods...
Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods. Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.
"We call for immediate action to stop unlawful attacks that would plunge an entire country into darkness and deprive millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living," Amnesty's leader said.
Other advocacy groups issued similar calls. US military veterans at the Council on American-Islamic Relations—CAIR-Michigan director Dawud Walid and CAIR-Florida communications director Wilfredo Ruiz—said that "declaring the Iranian people 'animals' and threatening to destroy their whole civilization is the sort of unhinged rhetoric we would expect from a racist, genocidal tyrant, not the president of the United States."
"Nothing in US law, military law, or international law would authorize the president to attempt to destroy another civilization by rendering their nation uninhabitable through indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure," they continued. "President Trump must be prevented from committing a genocidal crime that would live in infamy, whether by Congress reconvening and voting to stop the war, the Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment, or military leaders refusing unlawful orders to exterminate civilians. Refusing to take any action in the face of this open threat to commit genocide is complicity."
DAWN's advocacy director, Raed Jarrar, agreed that "every service member ordered to act on Trump's unlawful dictates should refuse those illegal orders," and warned that anyone "who carries out illegal strikes could face personal criminal liability for them."
The group's senior Iran analyst, Omid Memarian, added that "concerned US and international actors shouldn't fall for the Trump trap and let the focus on an arbitrary deadline or threat of cataclysmic action distract them when there is already systematic unlawful death and destruction taking place."
According to Memarian, "They should demand an immediate, unconditional, and permanent end to this unlawful war."
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Western Media Called Out for 'Misleading' Portrayal of Iranians Defending Infrastructure as 'Human Shields'
"The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all," said one expert.
Apr 07, 2026
After US President Donald Trump made his genocidal declaration on Tuesday that the "whole civilization" of Iran "will die tonight," reports began to roll in of people across the country standing outside the power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure the president promised to bomb.
Photos shared to social media by the government-affiliated Mehr news agency showed scene after scene of Iranians forming human chains outside power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah.
A video showed dozens of students assembled on the Dezful bridge in southwestern Iran, which is more than 1,700 years old and is believed to be one of the oldest functioning bridges in the world.
Over the weekend, Trump said that unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that it has used as a chokepoint against the Western economy, by Tuesday, he would bomb infrastructure relied upon by tens of millions of Iranians, which Amnesty International said could amount to a "war crime."
"We’re giving them till tomorrow, eight o’clock eastern time, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants," Trump said on Monday, reiterating his plans to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages."
According to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, more than 14 million people in the country responded to the threat by volunteering to put their bodies on the line and defend the infrastructure at risk. He said they'd "declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran.”
The government has encouraged Iranians, including children and young students, to take to the streets to form human chains around infrastructure that may come under threat, leading some Western media outlets to raise the fear that people were being used as "human shields."
Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, however, said this "is a deeply misleading framing."
"Iranians are not being placed in front of targets," he said, referencing several videos of the demonstrations. "Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive."
He noted the participation of Iranian celebrities in the human chains, including the composer and Tar player Ali Ghamsari, who stationed himself outside a power plant, and the pop singer Benyamin Bahadori, who filmed a video of himself walking along a bridge that had come under threat.
"This is about people trying to safeguard electricity, water, and basic civilization under open threat," Toossi said. "The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that Trump's threats could prove "apocalyptic" to millions of Iranians, plunging the "entire country into darkness and depriv[ing] millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living."
"Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods," she added. "Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”
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Watchdog Warns Trump Threat Against Iran Could Unleash 'Fatal Nuclear Disaster'
“To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” said the head of Beyond Nuclear.
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Sustainable energy watchdog Beyond Nuclear on Tuesday issued a dire warning about President Donald Trump potentially creating a "fatal nuclear disaster" by ordering military strikes on Iran's nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr.
The group noted that the 1,000-megawatt Russian-built water-water energetic reactor (VVER) at the Bushehr facility is the same design as nuclear reactors in Ukraine that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned could spark a humanitarian catastrophe if struck by Russian missiles.
Beyond Nuclear commented that there hasn't been nearly as much attention paid by the international community to the risks posed by a US or Israeli strike on the Bushehr plant, which it cautioned has "highly radioactive uranium fuel inside the reactor" that is "stored in cooling pools and on-site casks."
"Any extended loss of power caused by an attack or a direct hit could see the fuel overheat and ignite, potentially leading to explosions," the group explained. "The resulting radiological releases would result in long-lasting radioactive fallout affecting vast areas in Iran, neighboring countries, and beyond, contaminating agricultural land as well as sea water, an essential drinking water source for a region that relies on desalination."
Beyond Nuclear's warning came days after the IAEA issued an assessment of military strikes that took place near the Bushehr reactor. Although the agency found that the facility itself so far has suffered no damage from US-Israeli strikes, it warned that any attack that even comes close to striking the nuclear reactor risks calamity.
Trump for the last several days has been threatening to attack Iran's energy infrastructure, which Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear, said "would be a war crime."
“The Geneva Convention specifically defines a war crime to include hitting facilities that, if damaged or destroyed, would result in extensive loss of noncombatant life,” Pentz Gunter said. “A commercial nuclear power plant certainly falls into this category.”
On Tuesday morning, the president delivered his most bloodthirsty threat to Iran yet, declaring that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” unless Iran met his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed to most ship traffic for the last several weeks after Trump and Israel launched an unprovoked war.
Ryan Goodman, professor at New York University School of Law, noted in a social media post that Trump's mere threat violates the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."
Pentz Gunter also took a shot at Trump's brazen threats against Iran's energy infrastructure.
"To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” she said. “And even though we know Iran’s nuclear facilities were merely the pretext for the US-Israeli attack, we must remember that it was President Trump during his first term who effectively tore up a perfectly effective nuclear inspection and verification agreement—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—that ensured Iran stayed within the boundaries of a civil nuclear program."
Three physicians organizations on Tuesday—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—issued a joint declaration condemning Trump's threats to bomb Iranian power plants, highlighting the particular dangers of any attack on nuclear facilities.
"The bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems," the groups said. "We unequivocally condemn this pattern of strikes near and on nuclear facilities, including attacks by Israel and Iran in late March and another deadly attack near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant this weekend."
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