A collective of Iranian artists and academics has published an open letter in the UK-based Tribune magazine demanding an immediate end to the “violence being inflicted on the Iranian people, and the repeated threats by President Trump to destroy the civilian infrastructure.” An accompanying petition “condemns the threats against civilian infrastructure as collective punishment, documents the trauma they inflict, and warns that such rhetoric erodes decades of institution and norm-building meant to protect civilians in armed conflict.”
The full Tribune article, published on August 12, includes a link to the petition and signatories. It reads as follows:
Threats Against Iranian Civilians and Infrastructure Must Stop Now
“For six months, the population of Iran has lived not only under bombardment but under the promise of worse. Beyond the civilian deaths and injuries, beyond the destruction of homes and cultural heritage, a distinct source of suffering has run through this war: the repeated threats by President Donald Trump and his administration to destroy the civilian infrastructure on which Iranian life depends — above all, its energy, water, and transportation systems.
“These threats have been explicit and sustained. In April, the US President warned that ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again’, and vowed that every power plant and bridge in the country would be left in ruins. In July, he announced that the US would destroy one bridge or power plant, including in Tehran, each time Iranian forces fired on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Desalination plants, oil facilities, and the electrical grid have all been named as targets.
“For those living through the war, such statements are not mere rhetoric or political theatre. They generate a persistent fear of the collapse of essential systems to sustain life itself and, with it, of social order. The possibility of attacks on energy, transport, water, and communications raises immediate questions. Will hospitals function? Will there be clean water, food, electricity? Will breakdown bring unrest and mass violence? Human rights organisations have warned that the threats themselves demand urgent international action, and that carrying them out would violate the laws of war.
“These fears are grounded in history. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, and Vietnam, the destruction of infrastructure by U.S.-led campaigns multiplied the human costs of war long after the fighting. Researchers estimate that indirect deaths in the post-9/11 war zones — caused by the collapse of health systems, water, sanitation, and livelihoods — far exceed deaths from combat itself, reaching into the millions, with Iraq accounting for hundreds of thousands. The degradation of Iraq’s electricity and water systems after 2003 shows how such damage reverberates for decades.
“International humanitarian law is unambiguous. The principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects; objects indispensable to civilian survival enjoy special protection; and acts or threats of violence whose primary purpose is to spread terror among the civilian population are expressly forbidden. A threat can therefore be profoundly consequential — and legally significant — even if the attack it announces never takes place.
“A recent petition signed by over 200 academics, artists, and public figures in Iran and internationally speaks to precisely this dimension of the war. It condemns the threats against civilian infrastructure as collective punishment, documents the trauma they inflict, and warns that such rhetoric erodes decades of institution and norm-building meant to protect civilians in armed conflict. Its significance lies first in whose voices it carries: many signatories are Iranian artists and academics living inside Iran, experiencing these threats directly — voices largely absent from international coverage, which too often speaks about the Iranian population without hearing from it. And it lies in the breadth of its endorsement, from leading intellectuals such as Judith Butler and Cornel West to influential scholars and artists across disciplines and political positions. What unites them is a deep concern with the human consequences of threatening the systems that sustain civilian life.
“The stakes extend well beyond Iran. If major military powers normalise threats to destroy the infrastructure on which civilian life depends, they set a precedent for every future conflict. Energy grids, transportation networks, hospitals, water systems, and communications are not simply strategic assets to be held hostage in negotiation. They are the foundations of everyday life for millions of people.
“The consequences are serious whether or not the threatened attacks occur. Actual strikes on civilian infrastructure produce catastrophic humanitarian harm. Threats of such strikes produce sustained fear, insecurity, and psychological trauma, while weakening the norms designed to constrain violence against civilians. The protection of civilian populations cannot be made to depend on whether a particular threat is eventually carried out. The repeated normalisation of threats to destroy what sustains civilian life is itself a dangerous unravelling of the principles that international humanitarian law exists to defend and de-sensitises the public and our politicians to imaginaries of mass destruction and death in the future.”
Contributors: a collective of Iranian artists and academics formed in 2026 to protest the war on Iran.
