Iran Red Crescent submit request to international criminal court

Iran’s branch of the Red Crescent have sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into war crimes committed by the US and Israel. Providing an exhaustive list of the civilian infrastructure and damage to emergency response vehicles, they highlight how civilians are being targeted rather than combatants.

This comes whilst the US and Israel are waging an illegal war of aggression on Iran, which was unprovoked and initiated whilst all parties were at the negotiating table. However, given the criminal warrants already issued for Israel’s genocidal leaders for their longstanding crimes against Palestinians, it is hard to imagine Western leaders will suddenly sit up and listen. After all, this simply marks another act of complicit aggression in Western government’s expanding list of failures.

Iran Red Crescent: ‘to the honorable prosecutor’

The letter from the Iranian Red Crescent reads as follows:

Dear Prosecutor,

I write on behalf of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, in the discharge of its humanitarian mandate and in reliance upon the binding principles and rules of International Humanitarian Law, to formally submit our protest and request for criminal examination concerning a series of military attacks carried out against civilian objects within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Advertisement

According to field reports from relief workers, operational documentation, and data recorded by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a wide range of residential areas, medical facilities, schools, humanitarian facilities, vital urban infrastructure, and public places were directly or indiscriminately targeted during the recent military attacks.

Based on consolidated recorded data:

• 6,668 civilian structures have been damaged
• 5,535 residential units have been destroyed or damaged
• 1,041 commercial units have been damaged
• 14 medical centers have been affected
• 65 schools have been damaged
• 11 facilities affiliated with the Iranian Red Crescent Society have been targeted
• 3 emergency response vehicles have been damaged
• 7 Iranian Red Crescent relief workers have been killed or injured

Widespread reports describe US-Israeli attacks against Iran that have caused mass-casualty incidents and killed innocent civilians. Most disturbingly, on the first day of this illegal war, bombs struck a school twice, killing 165 schoolchildren and their teachers. The attack has understandably triggered deep grief across Iran, bringing people closer together in the face of what many see as an existential threat from the West.

Western hypocrisy

For those in the West, we have learned since Iraq and since October 7th 2023 that if leaders want to ignore flagrant law breaking, they will. After all, legality isn’t a concern for the powerful, instead their priority is what they can gain from law breaking. We wrote recently about the silence seen after the strike on the school:

If it emerges that the United States deliberately struck a girls’ school, killing scores of defenceless children, will it admit responsibility? Israel’s continued refusal to acknowledge its crimes against Palestinians raises concerned that Washington may display the same level of indifference towards Iranian lives.

At the time of the school girls’ funeral, a time of inextricable grief and mourning for their families, China-based US journalist, Jason Smith, questioned the deafening silence from Western media, saying:

Advertisement

“This should be on the front page of every Western newspaper. Ask yourself: Why isn’t it?”

Given the spinelessness and collaboration in genocide of the UK media and political (and Epstein) class, it’s no surprise at all — but no less appalling for that.”

It comes as no surprise that our leaders seem unable to locate their moral compass or basic humanity. Especially when we remember we are wholly complicit in the war on Iran despite the semantics and maneuvering of the UK government. After all, facilitating bombers makes you just as guilty as sending bombers yourself. Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has been a staunch critic of our involvement in the genocide on Gaza and now the war on Iran, writing on X:

American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying off to bomb Iran, yet Keir Starmer gaslights the nation by claiming the UK isn’t at war.

These aircraft are dropping 2,000lb bombs on schools, hospitals and homes in Iran, where the death toll has already surpassed 1,300.

Advertisement

If this illegal war is being launched from our bases, then the UK is directly involved.

70% of the public oppose these attacks.

The Prime Minister needs to grow a spine: stop the bombers landing and kick US troops out of UK bases.

Replying to the letter from the Red Crescent, NHS Doctor Dan Goyal gave his damning indictment of the West in how it conducts its ‘wars’ on X:

There’s a cowardice and arrogance at the heart of all these offences. The rules of war are too inconvenient- easier just to bomb targets that cause the most pain. The rules don’t apply to them anyway. It’s a position we cannot and must not accept.

Another account on X spoke to the existential threat faced by Iran and what we have learned by watching the genocide unfold in Gaza:

A repeat of the Zionist Israeli actions, with the help of Zionist USA and others, against the people of Iran.

It is clear that the American and Israeli governments are in breach of International and humanitarian law and that their actions in Iran are unlawful.

Advertisement

The attacks on Iran, because they fail under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, prohibiting the use of force against another state except in two circumstances.

A country is permitted to act in self-defence after an armed attack.

Military action is permitted when authorised by the UN.

Neither apply in this case.

Advertisement

The Zionist American actions in Iran copy and mirror the Zionist Israeli actions in Gaza and the OPT.
Any action following the illegal war on Iran is by its very nature illegal also.
The genocide is likely to have already started and the Zionist Israeli and USA humanitarian crises created by these illegal and unlawful actions are rightly to be condemned by all right thinking people.

‘Epstein Coalition’ of war criminals

Law and morality should be fixed: killing children is wrong, no matter where they come from or how powerless they are. However, Trump’s ties to Epstein indicate there has been precious little morality under consideration by either of these arrogant brutes in their lifetimes.

But more and more ordinary people wake up to this reality every day, applying more pressure against the powerful.

That pressure must grow until the tide turns in favour of humanity, as opposed to the greedy egos of the powerful.

Featured image via the Canary