Iranian protesters describe personal toll of crackdown

“My friends are all like me. We all know people who have died in the protests.”

For Parisa, a 29-year-old from Tehran, the crackdown by Iranian security forces earlier this month was unlike anything she had witnessed before.

“I personally don’t know anyone who was killed during the most widespread protests before,” she said.

Parisa said at least 13 people she knew have been killed since protests broke out in the capital on December 28 over worsening economic conditions, which turned into one of the deadliest periods of anti-government unrest in the Islamic Republic’s history.

A human rights group reports that the confirmed death toll has surpassed 6,000, and despite a near-total internet shutdown, several young Iranians have been able to speak to the BBC in recent days, describing individual tolls.

Parisa said that as protests escalated across the country on Thursday, January 8, and Friday, January 9, a 26-year-old woman she knew was killed by “a hail of bullets in the streets” and authorities used lethal force to suppress the protests.

That Thursday, she attended protests in northern Tehran, which she insisted were peaceful.

“No one acted violently, no one clashed with the security forces. But on Friday night, they still fired into the crowd,” she said.

“The neighborhood where the clashes took place smelled of gunpowder and bullets.”

Mehdi, 24, also from Tehran, echoed her assessment of the scale of the protests and violence.

“I have never seen such a high turnout and such killing and violence by the security forces,” he said.

He added: “Despite the killings on Thursday (January 8) and threats of more killings on Friday, people came forward because many of them could no longer take it and had nothing to lose.”

Mahdi described multiple incidents of witnessing security forces killing protesters at close range.

“I saw a young man killed by two live rounds in front of my eyes,” he said.

“The motorcyclist shot a young man in the face with a shotgun. He collapsed and never stood up.”

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) said at least 6,159 people have so far been confirmed killed since the unrest began, including 5,804 protesters, 92 children and 214 government personnel. It is also investigating reports of another 17,000 deaths.

Another group, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization (IHR), warned that the final death toll could exceed 25,000.

Iranian authorities said last week that more than 3,100 people had been killed, but most were security personnel or bystanders attacked by “rioters”.

Most international news organizations, including the BBC, are banned from reporting within Iran. But video showing security forces firing live ammunition into the crowd has been confirmed by the BBC.

Sahar, 27, from the capital, said she knew seven of the victims.

She described how the security forces’ response to the unrest on January 8 quickly escalated.

During protests that night, Sahar and her friends sought shelter in a nearby house after tear gas was fired.

“My friend put his head out the window to see what was going on and they shot him in the neck,” she said.

Another friend, who did not go to the hospital for fear of being detained, was wounded by a pellet and later died from blood loss, Sahar said.

Sahar said a third friend died while in custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“They (officials) told his family to go to the IRGC intelligence office. A few days later, they called and said, ‘Come and collect the body.'”

Sahar said uniformed security personnel openly fired live ammunition “without mercy” on January 9.

“They pointed lasers at people and locals opened the parking lot doors and told us to hide,” she said.

Communication blackouts compounded the trauma.

“There’s no news at all right now,” Sahar said. “Without internet or phone lines, we had no idea what was happening to anyone. We could barely make a phone call to get some news.”

Parham, 27, described the widespread use of pellet guns by Tehran’s security forces, particularly targeting protesters’ faces and eyes.

On January 9, one of his friends, Sina, 23, was shot in the forehead and eye.

“We took him to the hospital, but the doctor just gave us a prescription and told us to leave as quickly as possible,” Parham said.

Injured protesters continued to arrive at an eye hospital, he added.

“Every 10 minutes, it’s like they’re bringing in another person who’s been hit by a pellet.”

Parham said a staff member at the hospital cafe said she saw “70 people come in with eye injuries in one shift”.

Sina still has small balls stuck behind one of her eyes and on her forehead. He said they were afraid of being arrested at the First Hospital because they needed to provide their ID number, so they went to a private eye hospital.

He said he was “lucky” compared to other people he saw at the eye hospital who had “particles all over their faces and in both eyes”.

The BBC had seen a medical document in Sina’s name which stated that he had “a 5mm metallic foreign body” behind his eye.

The BBC has also received and verified the medical records of a number of other protesters who suffered pellet gunshot wounds.

Protesters and activists also described authorities refusing to release the bodies of victims to their families.

Mehdi said his friend’s cousin was killed and officials told the family they could either pay a large sum of money to receive his body or agree to have him recorded as a member of the security forces.

“They said, ‘Either pay 1 billion tomans (more than $7,000; £5,000) for us to give the body to the family, or you have to say he was a member of the Basij Party and was martyred for public safety and against rioting.”

Naveed, 38, from Isfahan, also said two close friends whose relatives were killed had also received such an ultimatum.

“They say you have to pay the equivalent of thousands of dollars or have us issue them a Basij card so that they are counted among the security force deaths,” he quoted a friend as saying.

Human rights groups have warned that this approach is both an attempt to punish the families of protesters and hide the true death toll.