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Rubio: Amnesty is a fraud while Iran murders wounded protesters in their hospital beds

Photo: U.S. Department of State / Public domain (source)

Rubio Calls Amnesty International a Fraud, Tells It to Look at Iran’s Killings of Wounded Protesters

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanOctober 8, 2026 · 5 min read
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Amnesty International’s accusations of American war crimes in the Iran conflict with four words: “Amnesty International is a fraud.” Then, asked about the group’s criticism during his October 8 stop in Portugal, the final leg of a European trip that also took him to Iceland and Greece, he told it where to look instead: at an Iranian regime that, he said, hunts wounded protesters down in their hospital beds.

Rubio was responding to a reporter who cited Amnesty’s claim that Portugal “should not support war crimes.” It was a blunt answer to a group that has pressed Portugal to cut off support for U.S. operations against Iran, and it put a spotlight on a crackdown that human rights groups have documented since the start of the year.

What Rubio said

The question came out of a running dispute in Portugal over U.S. military use of Lajes Field, the air base in the Azores. Rubio did not hedge. “You know what I think Amnesty International should be focused on? An Iranian regime that murdered, in cold blood, tens of thousands of people in the streets of Tehran and in other parts of the country,” he said, according to a transcript published by RedState.

He continued: “What Amnesty International should focus on is how the Iranian regime goes into hospitals when protesters are injured and murders the people in their hospital bed, and, by the way, sometimes murders the doctors or the nurses who treated them. So they should focus on them. Those are war crimes. Those are crimes against humanity, and those are crimes they’re committing against their own people.”

On the Portuguese side of the controversy, The Jerusalem Post reported, Rubio said: “We would never violate the sovereignty of any country.” Asked about a possible Portuguese inquiry into the base’s use, he said: “I can’t comment on that.”

What Amnesty demanded

Amnesty’s campaign on Lajes began earlier this year. According to Portuguese broadcaster RTP, Amnesty International urged the government of Prime Minister LuĂ­s Montenegro to refuse U.S. use of the Lajes base and Portuguese airspace for military operations against Iran, to end any military support to the United States that could enable crimes under international law, and to suspend arms transfers to any party in the conflict. It launched a petition addressed to Montenegro. The group argued that joint Israeli and American strikes on Iranian infrastructure had caused vast civilian damage and in some cases may constitute war crimes.

Portugal’s center-right government granted what the Associated Press described as “conditional approval” for U.S. use of Lajes, which supports refueling flights for American operations in the Iran war. Spain, by contrast, refused to let the U.S. use its bases to stage attacks on Iran. In Portugal, the small left-wing party Left Bloc filed a formal complaint, and the country’s attorney general’s office said it was looking into whether the use of the base was lawful. In Lisbon on October 8, Rubio held a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel and called Portugal “a great ally, very cooperative ally of the United States.”

What the regime has done in the hospitals

Rubio’s charge about hospitals is not rhetorical. It tracks reporting from the regime’s own crackdown on nationwide protests that began on December 28, 2025.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported on January 6 that security forces raided Khomeini Hospital in Ilam Province on January 3 and 4, entering wards and patient rooms, breaking down hospital doors and trying to arrest injured protesters and remove bodies. The group said videos showed tear gas and batons used inside and around the hospital compound, and that medical staff were reportedly beaten for refusing to cooperate with arrests. Security forces also reportedly fired tear gas inside Sina Hospital in Tehran on January 6. “Hospitals are protected spaces, and medical workers are protected persons—there are no exceptions,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the group’s executive director.

The most chilling account came later. In July, Iran International published an investigation based on medical staff, witnesses and videos alleging that security forces took over Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital in the western city of Khorramabad during the January crackdown. According to those accounts, officers moved through wards identifying wounded protesters, confiscated staff phones and arrested several staff members. One eyewitness said at least 70 critically wounded protesters who could have survived were moved to the morgue, and some patients taken from the wards were later found there with fresh gunshot wounds. The outlet said its account drew on more than two dozen sources, including medical personnel and eyewitnesses, along with hospital records and videos; the figure of 70 came from a single eyewitness.

The overall toll is enormous. Fox News reported in late January, citing the Human Rights Activists News Agency, that more than 6,200 protesters had been killed since December 28, with nearly 17,100 more arrests. That same week, Rubio revoked U.S. travel privileges for senior Iranian officials and their families. “Those who profit from the Iranian regime’s brutal oppression are not welcome to benefit from our immigration system,” the State Department said.

The double standard

Human rights organizations are supposed to be the ones shouting about governments that storm hospitals and drag the wounded from their beds. But in a year when that regime massacred its own citizens, Amnesty’s priority in Portugal was a campaign to deny the United States the use of an allied air base. Rubio’s point was that the moral outrage is pointed in the wrong direction.

He is right. A watchdog that treats a democracy fighting a terror-sponsoring theocracy as the main suspect, while the theocracy is shooting patients, has lost the thread of its own mission.

Amnesty went looking for war crimes in the Azores, and Rubio sent it to the hospital wards of Iran, where the evidence is.

Sources

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