Iran's massacre will get a strongly worded letter from the UN Human Rights Council but only after they find a way to blame Israel

Inside Iran’s brutal protest crackdown: ‘It feels like everyone is dead’

The first messages to get through the internet blackout in more than two weeks share stories of brutal and widespread violence

https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/iran-protests-news-deaths-jlxrrls8z

Friday January 23 2026, 5.25pm GMT, The Times

After years of protests against the regime, Rozita was sure this time was different. Activists had new tactics, there seemed to be fewer guards and most of all they were bolstered by President Trump’s promise that help was “on the way”. Now, those streets have fallen silent. 

“It feels like everyone is dead. It feels like Armageddon,” the 37-year-old transportation manager told The Times. It was the first message she had been able to get through since the internet blackout on January 8. 

The digital iron curtain has concealed the scale of the violence used to supress the uprising. On Thursday, the regime said 3,200 people had been killed and confirmed their identities, but the true toll may be much higher. 

• Iran report says 16,500 dead in ‘genocide under digital darkness’

On Friday, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) said it had confirmed 5,002 deaths, of which were 4,714 protesters, 42 children, 207 members of the security forces and 39 bystanders. The group added it was still investigating another 9,787 possible fatalities.

A report last week suggested that 16,500 protesters had been killed and 330,000 injured. 

Rozita, whom The Times followed as she took part in demonstrations two weeks ago, has long stopped going outside at night. Large protests have disappeared in the face of the armed militia patrolling the streets in pick-up trucks with mounted machine guns.

“We were just ducks in front of the bullets,” she said. “We are not armed. We are simple people. We are educated in universities, not in battle. We are looking for a peaceful life. We are not able to fight these shameless, brutal people.

Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran on January 9

AP

“For five days in a row, we were all out, we tried to overpower the regime. But they would come out, attack with their guns and wipe out the streets, they killed anyone outside. If you got injured and tried to run, they shoot you in the back of the head. If you’re filming from your window, they shoot you.”

Tina Ghazimorad, the editor in chief of Manoto TV, has covered Iran for over 15 years and became a key source of information and footage during the unrest. She said the regime was using “terror tactics to intimidate civilians and make public assembly life-threatening”.

UGC/AP

The killings have not stopped, according to Ghazimorad, they have only been “driven into the shadows”.

“Arrests continue with no transparency or legal oversight. Thousands are held in secret detention centres without access to lawyers or due process, where death is a daily possibility,” she said.Play Video

On Friday Amnesty International released a report on Iran’s crackdown on the protests, saying that the regime imposed “sweeping arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, bans on gatherings and attacks to silence families of victims”. It also claimed some detainees had been subjected to torture and sexual violence.

Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old demonstrator and clothes shop owner, has been sentenced to death and is still in detention. Rights groups say his execution is postponed, not cancelled.

“The regime has shown no change in its fundamental behaviour or approach. What we are seeing appears to be a temporary pause, not a reversal,” Ghazimorad said. “The only notable shift is the temporary suspension of public executions, a tool the Islamic Republic has long used to intimidate the population.”

• IRGC, the Iranian ‘men in black’ who deal in oil, drugs and power

She adding that Soltani’s family had been denied access to any information regarding his case, including the charges against him. The cancellation of his execution “does not indicate leniency, fairness, or any legal correction”, she said.

“Crucially, there is still no reliable information about Erfan Soltani’s condition or whereabouts, nor about so many other protesters. The authorities have provided no transparency, and the absence of an execution announcement should not be interpreted as safety or due process.

“The regime has a documented history of quietly postponing executions, only to carry them out later, either silently or through court-sanctioned procedures once international attention wanes. There are many like Erfan Soltani.”

• IRGC, the Iranian ‘men in black’ who deal in oil, drugs and power

She adding that Soltani’s family had been denied access to any information regarding his case, including the charges against him. The cancellation of his execution “does not indicate leniency, fairness, or any legal correction”, she said.

“Crucially, there is still no reliable information about Erfan Soltani’s condition or whereabouts, nor about so many other protesters. The authorities have provided no transparency, and the absence of an execution announcement should not be interpreted as safety or due process.

“The regime has a documented history of quietly postponing executions, only to carry them out later, either silently or through court-sanctioned procedures once international attention wanes. There are many like Erfan Soltani.”

At the peak of the demonstrations, on January 8, when the largest number of Iranians took to the streets in nationwide protests and security forces fired directly on civilians, Rozita said she wanted Trump to help overthrow the regime.Trump said after that that Iran had “stopped” the killings, and that he hoped the US would not have to intervene. Rozita found no solace in his comments.

“I myself, all my friends, we didn’t have proper sleep during these days. It was filled with nightmares,” she said. 

People gather during protest on January 8 in Tehran, Iran

GETTY IMAGES

“The days were nightmares and the nights too, because we have witnessed a lot of things… I’m sorry that I’m still alive. I feel guilty that I’m not dead and the others are. They have taken our lives, entirely.”

There may still be hope for those counting on US intervention. On Thursday, Trump announced that a US “armada’ was heading to Iran and he was watching the country “very closely”. The USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier, and its group are understood to be heading towards the Middle East.

“We’re watching Iran,” he said. “I’d rather not see anything happen but we’re watching them very closely.”

One of the dead, whose family contacted The Times via an intermediary in London, was Arnika, a 15-year-old swimming champion. She was shot in the side and the heart in Gorgan, a city in central Iran where at least 300 people were killed.

The Times verified a photo of her round-rimmed glasses, covered in blood. According to witnesses, many detainees from Gorgon were transferred to the notorious Amirabad Prison. “Don’t let the blood of these children be wasted,” her family pleaded. 

Footage shared with The Times and verified by Manoto TV showed two long rows of corpses of the young, dressed colourfully, their faces exposed. One woman identified her son, Alireza Rahimi. The photograph was taken at Tehranpars Hospital, dated January 8.

Another protester injured by regime forces was reported to have been taken to Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center, south of Tehran. His family, who rescued him, said he hid in a body bag among the dead to avoid being detained or killed. The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said the case was “a rare moment of survival amid death”.

REUTERS

Families and residents gather at the Kahrizak Coroner’s Office to search for family members among rows of body bags

MEK/THE MEDIA EXPRESS/SIPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Security forces have raided homes and torn down satellite dishes attempting to breach the communications blackout. Checkpoints have been set up to search people’s phones.

Authorities have said that internet access will be restored on Friday, but digital rights activists fear the regime is planning a permanent severance from the outside world, allowing only officials and loyalists with so-called “white sim-cards” to connect.

“Our internet connection has been back a bit since Monday, it’s really weak though and we can’t use a VPN [virtual private network] — the connection comes and goes,” Rozita said. “So it’s not stable, it’s a very limited line. And it’s not safe.”

The only flicker of hope still alive is a gathering every night at 8pm, during which Rozita stands on her balcony to chant against the Ayatollah. The hour was chosen by Reza Pahlavi, son of the shah deposed in the Iranian revolution in 1979, and adopted by the people. They are still risking their lives by raising their voices against the Islamic Republic.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

OFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER/AP

“Only at night, when people chant at 8pm, chant death to Khamenei, to the Islamic Republic, we chant for our king and say, Javid Shah [long live the Shah], only at night we can count the voices and we know how many of us are left,” she said. 

“That is a dark thought. The voices are alive but less and less every day. They have killed us, they have arrested us. I’m sorry we’re not able to fight any more.”

On Friday the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to deepen its scrutiny of Iran amid alarm over the crackdown.

The 47-member body voted — with 25 in favour, seven opposed and the rest abstaining — for a resolution extending and broadening the mandate of independent investigators gathering information towards ensuring accountability for rights violations in the country.