Verified videos emerging from Iran show bodies piled up in a hospital, snipers stationed on buildings and CCTV cameras being destroyed, following the unprecedented crackdown on protests earlier this month.
BBC Verify has been tracking the spread of protests across Iran since they first erupted in late December, but the near total internet blackout imposed by the authorities has made it extremely difficult to document the scale of the state’s deadly crackdown on protesters.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed the killing of nearly 6,000 people, including 5,633 protesters, since the unrest began at the end of December. It says it is also currently investigating another 17,000 reported deaths received despite an internet shutdown after nearly three weeks.
Another group, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), has warned that the final toll could exceed 25,000.
Iranian authorities said last week that more than 3,100 people were killed, but that the majority were security personnel or bystanders attacked by “rioters”.
The latest videos to emerge from the country are understood to have been filmed on 8 and 9 January, when thousands of people took to the streets following a call for nationwide protests from Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah.
They are thought to be the deadliest nights for protesters so far and these newly verified videos show how Iran’s security forces have been violently cracking down on protesters.
Multiple clips analysed by BBC Verify and BBC Persian show bodies piled up inside a mortuary at Tehranpars hospital in east Tehran. We verified the location of the hospital by matching its interior to other publicly available images and videos of the building, and counted at least 31 bodies in just one video. Another clip shows seven body bags laid on the ground outside the hospital’s entrance.
Hundreds of people are seen protesting on a highway in west Tehran in another video before multiple rounds of gunfire can be heard and people begin to scream.
Protesters have also been seen trying to evade Iran’s heavy surveillance infrastructure by disabling CCTV cameras. Footage we verified shows one person in the capital climbing up a post and hitting a surveillance camera several times in an attempt to disable it. A huge crowd of protesters can be seen on the ground and heard cheering as the camera is damaged.
We have tracked the spread of the anti-government protests across 71 towns and cities in Iran, though the true number of areas where demonstrations have taken place is likely far higher.
