DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The bloodiest crackdown on dissent since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution is slowly gathering pace, despite authorities shutting the Islamic Republic off the Internet and much of the world.
Towns and cities reek of smoke as fire-damaged mosques and government offices line the streets. Banks were set on fire, ATMs smashed. Officials estimate the damage to be at least $125 million, according to a number of Associated Press reports from the IRNA news agency in more than 20 cities.
The number of dead protesters reported by activists continues to rise. Activists warn that it shows Iran is engaging in the same tactics it has used for decades, but on an unprecedented scale — firing from rooftops at protesters, firing birdshot into crowds and sending paramilitary Revolutionary Guard volunteers on motorcycles to beat and detain those who cannot escape.
“The vast majority of the protesters were peaceful. Video footage shows crowds of people – including children and families – singing, dancing around campfires, marching through their streets,” said Amnesty International’s Raha Bahreini. “The authorities opened fire illegally.”
The killing of peaceful protesters – as well as the threat of mass executions – have been a red line for military action for US President Donald Trump. A US aircraft carrier and warships are approaching the Middle East, possibly allowing Trump to launch another attack on Iran after bombing its nuclear enrichment sites last year. This risks triggering a new war in the Middle East.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to detailed questions from the AP about the suppression of the demonstrations.
Protests against the spiral of the rial
Demonstrations began on December 28 in Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar, initially over the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, and then spread across the country.
Tensions flared on January 8, with demonstrations called for by Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. Witnesses in Tehran told the AP before authorities cut off internet and phone communications that they saw tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets.
As communications failed, gunfire rang out across Tehran.
“Many witnesses said they had never seen such a large number of protesters on the streets,” said Bahar Saba of Human Rights Watch. “Iranian authorities have repeatedly shown that they have no answers other than bullets and brutal repression against people who take to the streets.”
Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, a deputy interior minister speaking on state television on Wednesday, acknowledged that the violence began in earnest on January 8.
“More than 400 cities were involved,” he said.
By January 9, Revolutionary Guards General Hossein Yekta, previously identified as leading units of the plainclothes force, went on Iranian state television and warned “mothers and fathers” to keep their children at home.
“Tonight you must be vigilant. Tonight is the night to keep the mosques, all the bases everywhere full of Hezbollah,” Yekta said, using a word for “followers of God” that carries the connotation of fervent supporters of the Iranian theocracy.
Already weakened by Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June, the authorities decided to use full force to end the demonstrations, experts said.
“I think the regime saw it as a moment of existential threat and they could either allow it to play out and allow the protests to build and allow foreign powers to increase their rhetoric and increase their demands on Iran,” said Afshon Ostovar, an expert on the Revolutionary Guard and a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California.
“Or they could turn off the lights, kill as many people as necessary … and hope they can get away with it. And I think that’s what he did in the end.”
Basij key in disrupting protests
In Iran, one of the main ways its theocracy can quell demonstrations is through the Basij, the Guard’s volunteer arm.
Mosques in Iran include facilities for the Basij. Major General Heydar Baba Ahmadi was quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency in 2024 as having estimated that “79% of Basij resistance bases are located in mosques and 5% in other holy places”.
Iranian state media have repeatedly aired images of mosques damaged during the protests without exploring their links to the Basij.
“Most bases in the Basij neighborhood are co-located with the mosques, and most of the leaders in the Basij neighborhood are associated with the mosque leadership,” Ostovar said, adding that the demonstrators “go after the regime’s targets” associated with the crackdown would be considered “a legitimate part of it.”
The videos show the Basij wielding long guns, batons and pellet guns. Riot police can be seen wearing helmets and body armor, carrying assault rifles and submachine guns.
The videos show police firing rifles into the crowd, which authorities deny, despite the bodies showing wounds consistent with metal gunshots. Dozens have reportedly suffered blinding eye injuries from birdshot – something seen in the protests surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported that Tehran’s Farabi Eye Hospital, the first clinic for eye injuries, called “all current and retired doctors” to help the injured.
“We received reports that the security forces were just shooting non-stop at the protesters,” said Amnesty International’s Bahreini.
“They don’t just target one or two people to create a climate of terror for people to disperse… they just relentlessly shoot thousands of protesters and chase them, even if they were running away, so that more people just fall to the ground with serious gunshot wounds.”
Casualties mount as repression intensifies
For two weeks, Iran has not provided overall casualty figures. Then on Wednesday, the government said 3,117 people had been killed, including 2,427 civilians and security forces. That left 690 more dead whom Pourjamshidian identified as “terrorists”.
That contradicts figures from the US-based news agency Human Rights Activists, which put the death toll at 5,137 on Saturday, based on activists in Iran checking the deaths against public records and witness statements. It said 4,834 were demonstrators, 208 were members of the government, 54 were children and 41 were civilians not participating in the protests.
Iran’s death toll has long been inflated or deflated for political reasons. But the fact that Iran’s theocracy provided any death toll—and provided a toll beyond any other political upheaval to hit the country in the modern era—underscores the scale of what happened.
It also provides a justification for the ongoing mass arrest campaign and internet shutdown. State media reports tens of hundreds of people detained daily.
Pourjamshidian also provided an extensive list of vandalism from protests and crackdowns, including 750 banks, 414 government buildings, 600 ATMs and hundreds of vehicles damaged.
Meanwhile, uncertainty looms for the Iranian theocracy over what Trump may or may not do.
Traditionally, Iranians hold memorial services for their deceased loved ones 40 days after their death – meaning the country could see renewed demonstrations around February 17. Online videos from Behesht-e Zahra, the massive cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran, show mourners chanting: “Death to Khamenei!”
Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP show a large number of cars daily in the southern part of the city of Behesht-e Zahra, where those killed in the demonstrations are buried.
Elaheh Mohammadi, a journalist at Tehran’s pro-reform Ham Mihan newspaper, recently noted that he was imprisoned by the authorities. She said journalists were working on stories about Behesht-e Zahra that they could not publish.
“We are sending a message to let people know we are still alive,” Mohammadi wrote online. “The city smells of death.”
“Hard days are past, and all the world is bewildered; a whole country is in mourning, a whole country holds back its tears, a whole country has a lump in its throat.”