I draw urgent attention to the worsening catastrophe and crackdown in Iran. Following mass demonstrations since late December, the regime's response has been one of breathtaking brutality. Credible monitoring reports estimate that over 25,000 protesters have been killed, with tens of thousands arrested across the country. Some reports suggest more than 20,000 people may have been detained, many held incommunicado under a sweeping digital blackout. These protests are driven by a people pushed to desperation by decades of authoritarian corruption and mismanagement. Tehran, a city of more than 10 million people, is suffering severe water shortages and electricity blackouts, with experts warning of an impending water day zero. The country's president has cautioned that the capital may even face evacuation.

Meanwhile, testimonies describe the torture, rape and degrading treatment carried out systemically to terrorise civilian protesters, while Iran's judiciary declared it is just getting started in punishing so-called rioters. We cannot ignore the scale of public executions, nor the central role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps whose actions have resulted in renewed calls across Europe for its designation as a terrorist organisation, a push we must support. When the House condemned the treatment of Iranian women in October 2022, we were rightly vocal in our obligation to stand for human dignity, yet today I observe a troubling tendency among certain sections of the left more concerned with condemning the political right in the West than supporting the human rights of the Iranian people. I want to ask the left whether Iranians bleed differently from Palestinians. I ask that we place this matter on the agenda for urgent debate.