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“My friends are all like me. We all know someone who was killed in the protests.”
For Parisa, a 29-year-old resident of Tehran, the recent crackdown by Iranian security forces marked a stark escalation from previous events she had witnessed.
“In the most widespread protests prior to this, I did not personally know a single person who had been killed,” she stated.
Parisa reported knowing at least 13 individuals who had died since the protests began on December 28, triggered by deteriorating economic conditions in the capital. These demonstrations evolved into one of the most lethal periods of anti-government unrest in the history of the Islamic Republic.
As one human rights organization estimates the confirmed death toll has surpassed 6,000, several young Iranians have spoken to the BBC in recent days, despite a near-total internet blackout, detailing the profound personal impact of the unrest.
Parisa recounted the death of a 26-year-old woman she knew, who was killed by “a hail of bullets in the street” during the escalation of protests across the country on January 8 and 9, when authorities responded with lethal force to suppress the demonstrations.
Parisa herself participated in demonstrations in northern Tehran on January 8, which she described as peaceful.
“No-one engaged in violence or clashed with the security forces. However, on Friday night, they opened fire on the crowd,” she stated.
“The smell of gunpowder and bullets permeated the neighborhoods where clashes were taking place.”
Mehdi, a 24-year-old from Tehran, echoed Parisa’s assessment of the scale of the protests and the violence employed.
“I had never witnessed anything remotely comparable to this level of participation, killings, and violence perpetrated by the security forces,” he said.
“Despite the killings on Thursday, January 8, and the threats of further violence on Friday, people continued to protest, driven by a sense that they could no longer endure the situation and had nothing left to lose,” he added.
Mehdi recounted witnessing multiple instances of security forces fatally shooting protesters at close range.
“I saw a young man killed right before my eyes by two live rounds,” he stated.
“Individuals on motorcycles shot a young man in the face with a shotgun. He collapsed on the spot and did not recover.”
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) reports that it has confirmed at least 6,159 deaths since the unrest began, including 5,804 protesters, 92 children, and 214 individuals affiliated with the government. The organization is also investigating reports of an additional 17,000 deaths.
Skylar Thompson, representing Hrana, told the BBC that the confirmed death toll is likely to increase.
“We are committed to ensuring that every piece of verified information we report includes a name and a location,” she added.
Another group, Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, has cautioned that the final death toll could exceed 25,000.
Iranian authorities stated last week that over 3,100 people had been killed, asserting that the majority were security personnel or bystanders attacked by “rioters.”
Most international news organizations, including the BBC, are prohibited from reporting within Iran. However, the BBC has verified videos showing security forces firing live ammunition at crowds.
Sahar, a 27-year-old from the capital, reported knowing seven people who had been killed.
She described the rapid escalation of the security forces’ response to the unrest on January 8.
During a protest that evening, Sahar and her friends sought refuge in a nearby house after tear gas was deployed.
“My friend looked out of a window to see what was happening, and they shot him in the neck,” she said.
According to Sahar, another friend was wounded by pellets and subsequently bled to death, having avoided seeking hospital treatment out of fear of being arrested.
Sahar stated that a third friend died while in the custody of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC).
“The officers told his family to go to the IRGC intelligence office. After a few days, they called and said, ‘Come and collect the body.'”
Sahar reported that on January 9, uniformed security personnel openly fired live ammunition “without mercy.”
“They were pointing lasers at people, and locals were opening their car park doors for us to hide,” she said.
The communications blackout exacerbated the trauma.
“Currently, there is virtually no news available,” Sahar stated. “Without internet or phone lines, we had no idea what was happening to anyone. We could barely make calls to get any information.”
Parham, 27, described the widespread use of pellet guns by security forces in Tehran, with protesters’ faces and eyes being specifically targeted.
One of his friends, Sina, 23, was shot in the forehead and eye on January 9.
“We took him to a hospital, but the doctor could only provide a prescription and advised us to leave as soon as possible,” Parham said.
He added that wounded protesters were constantly arriving at an eye hospital.
“It felt like someone else who had been hit by a pellet was being brought in every 10 minutes.”
According to Parham, a worker at the hospital’s cafe said she had seen “70 people with eye injuries come in during a single shift.”
Sina, who still has pellets lodged behind one of his eyes and in his forehead, stated that they had feared arrest at the first hospital due to the requirement to provide identification numbers, so they sought treatment at a private eye hospital.
He said he felt “lucky” compared to others he witnessed at the eye hospital, who had “pellets all over their faces and in both of their eyes.”
The BBC has reviewed a medical document in Sina’s name indicating “there is a 5mm metallic foreign body” behind his eye.
The BBC has also received and verified the medical records of several other protesters with pellet-gun wounds.
Protesters and activists have also reported a pattern of authorities refusing to release the bodies of those killed to their families.
Mehdi said that after his friend’s cousin was killed, officials presented the family with the choice of paying a substantial sum of money to receive the body or agreeing to have him identified as a member of the security forces.
“They said, ‘Either pay 1 billion tomans [more than $7,000; £5,000] for us to hand over the body to the family, or you have to say he was a member of the Basij and was martyred for public security and against the riots.'”
Navid, a 38-year-old from Isfahan, also reported that two close friends whose relatives were killed had received a similar ultimatum.
“They say you have to pay the equivalent of several thousand dollars or let us issue them a Basij card so they are counted among the security forces’ dead,” he cited his friends as saying.
Human rights groups have warned that this practice serves both to punish the families of protesters and conceal the true death toll.
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