The protests have claimed the lives of at least 2,000 people, an Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity on Tuesday. This is the first number of victims that the authorities mention. In parallel, the NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), based in the United States, records the same number of total deaths and specifies that 1,850 of the deceased are protesters, while 135 belonged to the security forces.
The government source, which Reuters does not identify, links the deaths to the actions of “terrorists.” The accusation promotes the official version that the authorities have been defending, and that points to the United States and Israel as responsible for intervening in the mobilizations through armed agents, with the aim of provoking a spiral of violence that justifies an offensive by both countries.
For its part, HRANA counts nine minors among the 2,003 deaths confirmed on Tuesday, and details that it is verifying other cases, so it is expected that the final figure could be higher. A senior official from the Iranian Ministry of Health and another from the Government have indicated to the American newspaper The New York Times that the death toll is around 3,000. One of them anticipates that the figure could go up.
This information, which if confirmed constitutes one of the worst repressive episodes in the country’s recent history, coincides with the warning cry of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. “It cannot continue,” a “horrified” Volker Türk protested in a statement read by his spokesman, Jeremy Laurence. “The Iranian people and their demands for fairness, equality and justice must be heard.” Asked about the number of victims in the protests, Laurence put it “in the hundreds” according to his sources in Iran.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has denounced the “growing number” of deaths in Iran as “horrifying.” “I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and the continued restriction of freedom,” said the German. The president recalled that part of the security apparatus of the Iranian regime is already subject to European sanctions for its failure to comply with human rights, and has called on the club of 27 to go further. “In collaboration” with Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, “further sanctions on those responsible for the repression will be proposed immediately.”
The demonstrations began on December 28 in the Bazaar of Tehran, where the merchants’ union lowered the shutters of some businesses to protest the loss of the value of the Iranian rial and the deterioration of living conditions. In a few days, with thousands of Iranians in the country’s 31 provinces protesting the lack of freedoms and demanding a change of regime.
Photo: Toby Melville (REUTERS) | Video: EPV
Just as he did during previous revolts – the current one is the fifth since 2009 -, which he maintains after five days despite indicating on Monday that he would restore it soon. Most deaths have occurred during this blackout period. Witnesses gathered by the media or human rights groups – often via satellite – have reported bursts of gunfire towards gatherings from police stations or rooftops in Tehran, and several hospitals have entered a state of emergency due to the arrival of bodies marked by live ammunition in the head or neck.
In the 2019 mobilizations, which began due to the increase in the price of gasoline and which became one of the biggest challenges to the authorities since 1979, security forces killed more than 1,500 people in less than two weeks, according to three officials who told Reuters at the time.
“The people I have been able to speak with describe this uprising as the largest and most brazen since the birth of the Islamic Republic,” Iranian Firuzeh Mahmoudi, president of United for Iran, an Iranian-American human rights organization, explains to EL PAÍS. “Iranians know that they are risking their lives by taking to the streets to protest,” details the activist, “but many see the Islamic Republic as an expired political project, and this uprising is as much a riot as a protest,” she explains by phone from the United States.
“Terrorist agents”
The Iranian authorities, however, rule out that what they describe as “legitimate protesters” are involved in the altercations, and link these events with agents promoted or encouraged by the enemies of Iran, whom they blame for the deaths in the demonstrations.
Foreign Minister Abbas Arahgchi said during a press conference on Monday that Tehran has confiscated audio recordings sent from abroad to “terrorist agents” with instructions to open fire on protesters and security forces. Araghchi perceives in the maneuver a plot to promote the military intervention of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who has warned on numerous occasions that he would attack if Tehran shoots against the population.
This Tuesday, and he assured that “help is on the way.” The notice suggests some type of imminent forceful action in Iran that voices opposed to the regime fear will benefit it. The spokesman for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majedal-Ansari, has warned that this escalation would have “catastrophic results” in the region and has indicated that Qatar is working to avoid it.
Iranian intelligence has announced the identification of “cells” that, according to their version, have entered the country from abroad and are in possession of American weapons. Iran’s police chief, General Ahmadreza Radan, warned on Monday that individuals “trained to fabricate scenarios” and to “manipulate public perception” have been arrested, and has denounced the presence of armed people who were shooting at protesters and security forces to portray the authorities as violent.
The words of General Radan, who has promised to work until “the last person” involved in the riots is arrested, worry human rights defenders. The president of the Iranian judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, last week linked the protesters to “the American and Zionist regimes.” “The enemy has supported the rioters, not indirectly, but openly. No excuse or justification will be accepted from the rioters or those who support them,” he said during a meeting with the police command, according to the semi-official Tasnim agency.
On January 7, the Iranian authorities executed a young man for “spying for Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence agency abroad—which claimed, at the beginning of the protests, that it had personnel infiltrated the demonstrations. Iran Human Rights (IHR), a group based in Norway, denounces that the trial that led to the maximum sentence was irregular, “as happens in many maximum sentences.” It was the twelfth execution for that reason since the war that Israel started on Iran in June. During 2025, Iran carried out 2,063 executions, most for charges related to murder and drug trafficking.
“It is extremely worrying to see statements from some high-ranking judicial officials indicating the possibility of applying the death penalty to protesters through rapid processes,” the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned this Tuesday, regretting that the Government labels those who demonstrate as “terrorists.”
