Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh against a backdrop of protests in Iran (IranWire)

Iran Protests: How Many People Did The Regime Kill?

UPDATE, FEB 4:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty posts details of more than 100 victims among the thousands of Iranians killed by the regime during the recent nationwide protests.

ORIGINAL ENTRY, FEB 2: Human rights lawyer and political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh has been persecuted by Iran’s regime since the mass protests after the disputed 2009 Presidential elections. She was initially arrested in September 2010 and condemned to 11 years in prison. In June 2018, she was re-arrested and given a total of 38 years behind bars, later reduced to 10 years. She was released on bail in November 2023.

IranWire speaks with Sotoudeh about the regime’s deadly repression of the recent nationwide protests over economic conditions and political and social rights.

What is the atmosphere inside Iran after several days of a total internet blackout and the violent suppression of protests?

If I were to describe it in one sentence, I would say it is an atmosphere of awe and disbelief.

When people meet, they ask each other, “Is it really possible for such a crime to happen on such a massive scale?”

This is happening while people’s lives are already under pressure from multiple destructive forces—crippling inflation, raids, arrests, constant surveillance, and a national currency that is losing value by the day.

All of this exists, but the widespread killings and the images and videos of the dead — of Kahrizak [a morgue near Tehran] covered in black body bags — have created a deep sense of shock and psychological trauma across society.

People experienced a complete internet blackout and only later saw these images. On a personal level, how did you react to what you saw?

The first message conveyed by these events was one of limitless audacity, an audacity that first plunged an entire nation into silence so that the crime could be carried out in darkness.

Then came the desecration of the bodies. They piled corpses on top of one another and told families, “Go and find your children in this vast desert.”

I have personally received reports that families were pressured to declare their killed loved ones as Basij [State paramilitary] members.

In some cases, security forces tracked who the deceased had been with during protests to identify and trap others. They followed these leads into hospitals to hunt for the wounded.

I know many doctors who have been arrested, interrogated, or prosecuted simply for fulfilling their professional duty — treating the injured and then allowing them to leave without confiscating their identity documents for tracking purposes.

None of us can remain silent in the face of this.

State media claims life inside Iran is continuing normally and that public spaces remain busy. How do you respond to this narrative?

The idea that people can simply stop their daily lives entirely is unrealistic. A parent with a small child, a university student, or a school-aged child still worries about education, even when the future looks bleak. To create a sense of normalcy, it is natural for them to go to a park or a public place.

But wherever we go, the shadow of what we have seen does not leave us.

In one video, the camera moves for nearly twelve minutes over ground covered in bodies.

These are not images we will forget. In Kahrizak, black body bags are dragged across the ground while blood leaks beneath them. In the streets, blood flowed alongside water in the gutters. This is not something that disappears from memory.

As I have said before, we are condemned to live in a tunnel of death — one in which any one of us can become prey at any moment.

The possibility of war now looms over Iran. How do people inside the country perceive this?

In international law, there is the concept of humanitarian intervention when human rights are systematically violated. In the case of Iraq in 2000, the intervention followed a Security Council process.

In Iran’s case, such stages have not been pursued through the Security Council.

Now, it appears that the decision may rest with the US President — currently Mr. Trump — acting unilaterally.

At the beginning of the protests, he said, “You go to the streets. We are with you,” but that support did not materialize.

Humanitarian intervention should be collective. Any meaningful action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter has been blocked by vetoes from China and Russia.

Even so, the US could have attempted to build a broader international consensus, but that has not happened.

What we are witnessing now is not the power of law, but the law of power, as UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned.

As for public sentiment inside Iran, many people are waiting for this strike. Many who have been driven to the brink see it as their last hope.

When a society feels completely powerless against tyranny, it begins to look outward.

What concerns human rights activists most at this moment?

Our greatest concern is that these crimes will continue in different forms. We are deeply worried about the number of detainees currently held in Kahrizak, about rushed trials without due process, about extra-judicial executions, the continued mistreatment of the bodies of the dead, and the harassment of their families.

We formally and unequivocally demand an end to this violence.