by Karl Vic and Kay Armin Serjoie
Fears are growing that the number of protesters killed by Iranian security forces now reaches into the thousands. Despite an internet blackout, cell phone footage has emerged of truck-mounted machine guns strafing residential streets, hospitals swamped by shooting victims, and a morgue overwhelmed by hundreds of bodies after only the first night of assaults.
To account for what it called a “significant” death toll, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Sunday raised the specter of ISIS, claiming in a statement that slain protesters were terrorists hired by Israel and the U.S. Two days earlier, a Guard official on state-controlled television had warned that anyone venturing into the street should be prepared to “take a bullet.”
No precise death toll can be ascertained. Tallies offered by respected human rights groups have climbed into the hundreds, but those organizations count only bodies that have been identified, painstaking work made difficult by a communications blackout that extends to cell phones and even land lines.
However, starting with reports from a handful of Tehran hospitals, an informal, expatriate group of academics and professionals calculated that protester deaths could have reached 6,000 through Saturday. The calculation does not include bodies carried by authorities not to hospitals but directly to morgues—such as the hundreds lain on the floors and parking lot of the Kahrizak Forensic Center, outside the capital. According to a social media post, the scene shows only bodies killed on Thursday night.
No precise death toll can be ascertained. Tallies offered by respected human rights groups have climbed into the hundreds, but those organizations count only bodies that have been identified, painstaking work made difficult by a communications blackout that extends to cell phones and even land lines.
However, starting with reports from a handful of Tehran hospitals, an informal, expatriate group of academics and professionals calculated that protester deaths could have reached 6,000 through Saturday. The calculation does not include bodies carried by authorities not to hospitals but directly to morgues—such as the hundreds lain on the floors and parking lot of the Kahrizak Forensic Center, outside the capital. According to a social media post, the scene shows only bodies killed on Thursday night.
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Fears are growing that the number of protesters killed by Iranian security forces now reaches into the thousands. Despite an internet blackout, cell phone footage has emerged of truck-mounted machine guns strafing residential streets, hospitals swamped by shooting victims, and a morgue overwhelmed by hundreds of bodies after only the first night of assaults.
To account for what it called a “significant” death toll, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Sunday raised the specter of ISIS, claiming in a statement that slain protesters were terrorists hired by Israel and the U.S. Two days earlier, a Guard official on state-controlled television had warned that anyone venturing into the street should be prepared to “take a bullet.”
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No precise death toll can be ascertained. Tallies offered by respected human rights groups have climbed into the hundreds, but those organizations count only bodies that have been identified, painstaking work made difficult by a communications blackout that extends to cell phones and even land lines.
However, starting with reports from a handful of Tehran hospitals, an informal, expatriate group of academics and professionals calculated that protester deaths could have reached 6,000 through Saturday. The calculation does not include bodies carried by authorities not to hospitals but directly to morgues—such as the hundreds lain on the floors and parking lot of the Kahrizak Forensic Center, outside the capital. According to a social media post, the scene shows only bodies killed on Thursday night.
The scale of the killing appeared to dwarf anything previously seen on the streets of Iran. In one city in Isfahan province, Nafjabad, the death toll was 35 for Thursday night alone. And the protests have reached all 31 provinces of Iran, a nation of 90 million people with 100 cities with a population above 100,000.
“I’m in Shiraz,” a protester told TIME in the wee hours of Sunday from the city of 1.7 million in the country’s southwest. Asking to go by “Lewis” for his own protection, he spoke via Google Meet on Starlink, the satellite internet network that is illegal in Iran for its ability to defy shutdowns. Ahmad Ahmadian, a U.S.-based activist involved in smuggling the dishes into Iran, said at least 50,000 Starlink uplinks are there, though many may not be operating because of subscription fees. (Unlike in Ukraine and Venezuela, owner Elon Musk has not made Starlink free in Iran.)
The protests began in Tehran’s central bazaar on Dec. 28, after the collapse of the national currency sent the economy into freefall. But in Shiraz people went into the streets a week later, Lewis said, prompted by a call from Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of Iran’s former shah, or king. They were unlike previous demonstrations.
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