Bodies outside a morgue in Tehran, January 2026

EA on International Outlets: The State of Iran’s Protests

EA-Byline Times Podcast: How Far Can Iran’s Protests Go?

UPDATES: Iran Protests Continue Despite Rising Death Toll

UPDATE, JAN 18:

The Financial Times details the deadly response of Iran’s regime to suppress nationwide protests.

The demonstrations began on December 28 over economic conditions, with shopkeepers and Bazaar merchants coming out on strike. They quickly expanded into protests over the regime’s political and social restrictions.

The regime’s initial response was relatively restrained, with President Masoud Pezeshkian calling for engagement with the demonstrators.

But on January 8, the regime decided to confront mass crowds on streets across the country. The Internet was cut off. Human rights groups, supported by witnesses and video accounts, says hundreds of people were killed over the next two nights.

Amnesty International said security forces used residential buildings, mosques, and police stations to fire live ammunition on unarmed protesters, targeting their heads and torsos”.

Witnesses corroborated the summary. “You could hear gunshots at night, people screaming in fear,” said one woman.

The witnesses also spoke of agitators on the streets. “There were groups of men in black clothes, agile and quick,” said one demonstrator in Tehran. “They would set one dustbin on fire and then quickly move to the next target.”

Another witness in western Tehran said a dozen fit men, “looking like commandos”, dressed in similar black clothing, running through the area and calling on people to leave their homes and join the protests.

“They were definitely organized, but I don’t know who was behind them,” he said.

Despite the regime’s cutoff of the Internet, Iranians and activists have brought out news of the scale of the crackdown. Human rights activists have documented the killing of more than 3,400 people, the large majority of them protesters.

Iran’s State TV, apparently trying to instill fear, acknowledged the mass killings by showing around 200 bodies in the Kahrizak morgue in southern Tehran. Amnesty International counted 205 body bags from five other videos, shot by family members searching for relatives.

“Everybody said they knew somebody who had lost a family member,” said a witness.

Another in Tehran described a “dead and suffocating” atmosphere: “After the extremely brutal massacre, people are now busy searching for the bodies of their loved ones or trying to get their wounded treated.”

UPDATE 1450 GMT:

The Friday Prayer leader in Tehran, Ahmad Khatami, has maintained the regime’s threat to execute protesters.

Khatami, a member of the Guardian Council and a senior member of the Assembly of Experts, told the congregation yesterday that protesters are “butlers” and “soldiers” of Israel and the US. He said, “Armed hypocrites should be put to death.”

Donald Trump said falsely on Friday night that Iran had halted the execution of 800 protesters.

On Saturday, the Supreme Leader declared, “By God’s grace, the Iranian nation must break the back of the seditionists just as it broke the back of the sedition.”

While acknowledging that thousands of Iranians have been killed, “some in an inhuman, savage manner”, Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the US for the death toll. He called Trump a “criminal” who was “responsible for casualties, damages, and false accusations directed against the Iranian nation”.

UPDATE 1242 GMT:

Seven Kurdish political parties from Iran’s Eastern Kurdistan have accused authorities of committing crimes against humanity, urging the United Nations Human Rights Council, leading international powers, and global rights organizations to take urgent action.

In their joint statement, the parties condemned the regime’s killing of women and children, mass arrests, and the injury and blinding of thousands of demonstrators. They accused authorities of trying to conceal abuses by shutting down the Internet and restricting communication with the outside world.

The signatories also described serious human rights violations, including the prevention of families from burying victims in their hometowns, demands for large sums of money in exchange for the return of bodies, and the creation of a climate of fear that discourages the wounded from seeking medical treatment.

UPDATE 1013 GMT:

The Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw says that there have been no significant protest gatherings since Sunday as “the security environment remains highly restrictive”.

Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations.

The group said a female nurse was killed by direct gunfire from security forces during protests in Karaj, west of Tehran.

An elderly resident of a town in northwest Iran said sporadic protests had continued, though not as intensely.

A mother in Tehran told Reuters of the killing of her daughter in a demonstration near their home.

“She was 15 years old. She was not a terrorist, not a rioter. Basij [paramilitary] forces followed her as she was trying to return home,” the mother said.

Journalist Soran Mansournia is posting pictures of some of those killed by security forces.

During the protests on Tuesday, Jan 6, 2026, in Isfahan, Iran, #AmirsalarBahmaninejad, 19, was killed by security forces. He got shot in the heart near the Jaber-Ansari metro station. His body was withheld by IRGC for one week before being released to his family.
#IranMassacre

[image or embed]

— Soran Mansournia (@soran.bsky.social) January 17, 2026 at 12:13 AM

UPDATE, JAN 17:

On the 21st day of nationwide protests, the Internet is still almost completely cut off.

Netblocks reports that traffic is only 2% of normal.

Despite the regime’s claim that protests have been quelled, strikes reportedly continued in Tehran on Friday.

Three explosions were reported around 4:40 a.m. in the Shamsabad district. Meanwhile, Revolutionary Guards drones flew close to homes in some areas, recording inside the premises.

UPDATE 0933 GMT:

After a briefing by Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani, Iranian media activists say authorities plan to maintain the Internet cutoff until at least the Iranian New Year around March 20.

“The shutdown, now in its second week, is also expected to remain in place until after the end of the 40-day mourning period for those killed in recent nationwide protests,” IranWire summarized.

UPDATE 0924 GMT:

Award-winning director Jafar Panahi has told The Guardian:

It is impossible for this government to sustain itself in this situation. They know it too. They know that it will be impossible to rule over people.

Perhaps their only goal right now is to bring the country to the verge of complete collapse and try to destroy it.

Panahi, who has been recurrently arrested and detained by the Iranian regime since the 2009 mass protests, said the cutoff of the Internet on January 8 was a “sign that there would be a very big massacre on the way”. However, he noted, “We never predicted that the crackdown would have such dimensions and numbers.”

The director’s latest film, It Was Just An Accident, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year and is the French entry for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars.

He said, “What I have been depicting in this film is when the cycle of violence continues, then it becomes very difficult to stop it. Unfortunately, because of the savagery that is being carried out by the state, the fear is that this cycle of violence will continue.”

The director assessed:

The regime will collapse, 100%. It is what has happened to dictatorship governments throughout history.

When it will collapse, no one knows. We want it to be as soon as possible, in the next few minutes, but there are many factors that have to come together for it to happen.

UPDATE, JAN 16:

Thousands of Iraqi militiamen helped the Iran’s regime suppress protests, say “a European military source and an Iraqi security source”.

The Iraqi official said almost 5,000 fighters from Iraqi militias had entered Iran through two border crossings in southern Iraq. The European official said hundreds of fighters crossed under the cover of Shia religious pilgrimages.

The military reportedly operated in sensitive areas such as Hamedan in western Iran.

UPDATE 1458 GMT:

A local Red Crescent staff member was killed and five others injured in Gilan Province in northwestern Iran on Saturday.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies identified the slain staffer at Amir Ali Latifi. A spokesman said, “We don’t know the full picture of what exactly happened.”

UPDATE 1246 GMT:

Sara Rasuli, 39, who fled Iran after the Women, Life, Freedom protests of 2022 and is a refugee in Germany, has spoken to The Guardian about the killing of her cousin Ebrahim Yousefi by Iranian security forces.

A 42-year-old Kurdish father of three, Yousefi posted on social media hours before attending his final protest:

We ourselves never had any luck, nor did our children….We grew up with war and hunger, our children with sanctions, power cuts, water shortage, and pollution….God, in the end, what will become of our children?

Rasuli said relatives told her of Yousefi’s death after they reached the Iraqi border. Another cousin was wounded and another arrested at the protest.

She summarized:

[Ebrahim] went out to fight for freedom and the rights of their people. He was kind and just the nicest person you would meet. The economy has worsened so much that even buying meat has become a luxury.

UPDATE 1126 GMT:

Three members of the same family were killed by fire from Iranian security forces on their car in Karaj, west of Tehran, during protests last Friday.

Bijan Mostafavi, a retired education worker; his wife Zahra Bani Amerian, a retired social security employee; and their 19-year-old son Danial Mostafavi, a university student, were slain.

The couple’s older son Davoud Mostafavi was also in the car, but there is no confirmed information about his condition.

UPDATE 0735 GMT:

Iran’s judiciary has denied that Erfan Soltani was sentenced to death, rejecting the reports from his family that the execution had been set for Wednesday.

Donald Trump backed away from US military action yesterday as Soltani’s family said the hanging had been postponed.

The judiciary said Soltani, held at the central penitentiary in the city of Karaj and has been formally charged with “collusion against internal security” and “propaganda activities against the system”. It added that capital punishment does not apply to those charges under Iranian law.

UPDATE 0703 GMT:

Drawing from her contacts inside Iran, EA correspondent Deepa Parent speaks with The Guardian about the violence against protesters, from killings and serious woundings by security forces to the regime’s threat of executions.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: On the 18th day of Iran’s nationwide protests, Donald Trump has backed out of US military action.

After days of Trump’s declarations of American intervention, European and Israeli officials said on Wednesday that US strikes were expected within 24 hours. A series of countries closed their embassies and told citizens to leave the Islamic Republic.

But in a press appearance on Wednesday afternoon, Trump said he had assurances from “very important sources on the other side”:

They’ve said the killing has stopped and the executions won’t take place. There were supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won’t take place – and we’re going to find out.

Asked if US military action was now off the table, he said he will “watch it and see”.

Trump did not identify who gave him the assurances.

Iranian officials did not comment on Trump’s statement. However, the family of protester Irfan Solani, whose execution was scheduled for Wednesday, was told that the hanging had been postponed.

Soltani, an employee at a clothing shop, was arrested northwest of Tehran last Thursday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox TV that executions executions were not taking place and there would be “no hanging today or tomorrow”.

Meanwhile, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights, said at least 3,428 people have been killed — the vast majority of them protesters — and more than 10,000 arrested.

Trump Steps Back from Reza Pahlavi

Trump also held back from support of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as the next leader in Tehran.

Pahlavi has been in discussions with Trump’s envoy, real estate developer Steve Witkoff.

Trump said the Shah’s son, 65, “seems very nice” but added:

I don’t know how he’d play within his own country. And we really aren’t up to that point yet.

I don’t know whether or not his country would accept his leadership, and certainly if they would, that would be fine with me.