Iran International
Dozens of people have been killed in protests across Iran in recent days, according to human rights groups and witness accounts, with the full scale of casualties from Thursday night still unknown after authorities imposed a nationwide internet blackout.
Before communications were cut, Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based monitoring group, said at least 45 protesters had been killed between December 28 and January 8, and that more than 2,000 people had been arrested.
Those figures are likely to rise following Thursday’s nationwide protests and reports of further unrest on Friday night, but verification has become increasingly difficult as images and firsthand accounts from inside Iran have largely disappeared.
One video that circulated online on Thursday appears to show at least seven bodies lying on the ground in what looks like an underground parking area.
The footage, which has not been independently verified, is said by the narrator to have been recorded in Fardis, near the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. The narrator claims the victims were killed by live fire.
Warnings from the top
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has appeared rarely in public since last month’s 12-day war, addressed the nation on Friday, a day after the mass protests. He referred to demonstrators as “saboteurs” and said he would not retreat in the face of unrest.
Soon afterward, the Secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a statement warning that security forces and the judiciary would show “no leniency toward saboteurs.”
Similar statements later issued by the national police force and the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence arm described the protests as a “joint design” by Israel and the United States to undermine Iran’s security and vowed retaliation.
The remarks heightened concerns among activists and rights groups that the authorities were preparing for further violent crackdowns.
Recasting the dead
Alongside the use of force, Iranian authorities have in several cases sought to portray slain protesters as government supporters or as victims of protesters’ violence—a pattern seen in previous waves of unrest.
One such case involved Amir-Hessam Khodayari, 22, who was wounded by security forces on December 31 in the western city of Kouhdasht, in Lorestan province, and later died after being transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital, Khorramabad.
Little is publicly known about his education or occupation, but his family is described as working-class Kurds who follow the Yarsan faith, a religious minority.
The Revolutionary Guards issued a statement describing Khodayari as a member of the Basij, a pro-government militia, and as one of the “forces defending security.” State media echoed the claim, and local officials visited his family.
That account was contradicted after his family rejected efforts to identify him as a Basij member.
In a widely shared video, his father is seen telling mourners that his son had been a protester. Other videos showed crowds forcing security forces to retreat from his funeral, despite attempts by authorities to control the ceremony.
Family members and activists said they faced pressure, including threats to withhold his body and offers of financial compensation, to accept the official version of events.
A similar pattern was documented during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, including in the case of Hamid-Reza Rouhi, another protester initially portrayed by authorities as a Basij member after his death.
Many more to come?
Another recent case involved Shayan Asadollahi, 28, who was killed in the city of Azna, also in Lorestan province. Authorities withheld his body for five days, pressuring his family to say he had been a Basij member or that he had died in a traffic accident.
He was eventually buried quietly in the remote village of Deh Haji.
Asadollahi worked as a hairdresser and was the sole breadwinner for his mother and sister after his father died in an accident last year. Friends described him as an avid supporter of the Persepolis football club.
Like many young Iranians, he was active on Instagram, where he shared photos of his work, daily life and football fandom—an online presence that fell silent after his death.
The stories that have emerged so far may represent only a fraction of what occurred, with many more accounts expected to surface if and when full internet access is restored.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.