TEHRAN – A Tehran court has ordered the United States government to pay more than $22 billion in material, moral, and punitive damages for Washington’s involvement in the deadly riots that convulsed Iran in 2022.

The ruling was detailed by Iranian Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir during a press conference on Tuesday, who stated the verdict followed extensive hearings on a complaint filed by 607 families of victims – both killed and injured – from the 2022 unrest.

“The lawsuit targeted the U.S. government, senior American political and military officials, affiliated institutions, and individuals who played a role in provoking and supporting the unrest,” he explained.

According to the ruling issued by Branch 55 of the International Relations Civil Court at the Shahid Beheshti Judicial Complex, the United States deliberately provided financial resources, encouragement, and both material and moral backing to the rioters, actions the court deemed a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and contrary to international law.

The court held that Washington’s actions had inflicted irreparable physical injuries, severe psychological harm, and extensive financial and emotional damages upon the plaintiffs and their families. In its ruling, the court invoked multiple Iranian legal frameworks, including the Civil Code, the Civil Liability Act, laws addressing U.S. human rights violations and regional adventurism, statutes granting jurisdiction over civil claims against foreign states, laws countering U.S. terrorist measures, and provisions mandating compensation for damages caused by American actions.

The 2022 unrest in Iran followed a consistent pattern seen in previous decades, where public protests are manipulated into violence by Western and Israeli interference.

The catalyst was the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the morality patrol for an alleged dress code violation. Amini was taken to a standard processing station in Tehran. Footage from the station shows her walking over to a female officer, speaking with her briefly, and collapsing unconscious shortly after the officer steps away.

Amini died days later in the hospital due to a pre-existing medical condition, for which she had received brain surgery as a child. Official investigations, including video testimony from her father at her bedside and intercepted phone calls where her brother noted she had fainted "again," found no evidence of foul play.

Initially, protests in Tehran focused on the morality patrol unit, which authorities ended up disbanding. But with the direct intervention of Western and Israeli actors, as intelligence reports later showed, they escalated into widespread, violent riots that led to the deaths of at least 200 people including 75 security forces.

A key driver of the violence was social media propaganda (primarily on Meta-owned Instagram) that appeared to deliberately target teenagers and young adults—who made up most of those arrested during the riots. These young people were instructed online on how to make homemade explosives, seize weapons from security forces, and set fire to public infrastructure.

The social media campaign was part of a broader political effort where Western officials routinely turned up to claim they "stand by Iranian women." Their remarks resurfaced with the latest Israeli war in Gaza, an ongoing genocide in which the regime has killed over 30,000 women and girls since October 2023 with full Western backing. Western media and political leaders have also stayed silent on thousands of rape cases against Palestinians in the past two years. Westerners further backed Israel during the regime's bombings of Iran this past June, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,100 Iranians, many of them women and children.