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As Iran remains in a near-total communications blackout, three people in different cities described what they said were the biggest protests since 1979—followed by a crackdown so severe it left many seething with anger and hollowed out by anguish.
The accounts, shared in short voice messages over encrypted apps between 13 and 15 January, come from two people in Tehran—a journalist and a business owner—and an engineer in Isfahan.
All three are political activists who have been present in multiple rounds of protests over the years, giving them a clear basis for comparison and a sharp memory of how earlier protests unfolded.
Each stressed that their impressions were drawn not only from what they personally witnessed, but from conversations with friends, relatives, employees, and colleagues across multiple cities and towns.
All three said the demonstrations on the evening of 8 January dwarfed any other round of protests they had seen or known of. One described the crowds as numbering in the millions nationwide.
A European diplomat, citing intelligence shared with Iran International, said their information indicates that at least 1.5 million people took to the streets in Tehran on Thursday, 8 January.
He said the number was lower on Friday, 9 January, as security forces were heavily present in the streets and, in many cases, began shooting as people started to assemble, killing people en masse.
However, the European diplomat who spoke to the channel believes as many as half a million people were present in Tehran on Friday despite the mass killing.
The number of people in other cities is unclear due to the lack of foreign diplomatic presence outside Tehran—all embassies are in the capital. However, their intelligence estimate is that at least 5 million people participated in nationwide protests on Thursday and Friday.
What set that Thursday night apart, the three eyewitnesses said, was timing.
Protests had already been unfolding for more than a week when exiled prince Reza Pahlavi called for coordinated demonstrations at 8pm on 8 and 9 January. The appeal, they said, did not initiate the unrest but gave it focus—“an amplifying and organizing effect”, as one put it.
Few expected such numbers to turn out, possibly including the authorities themselves. Security forces were present, but initially appeared unprepared for the scale.
That changed rapidly.
By the following evening, after a speech by supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Friday morning framing the protests as the work of foreign-backed agents, the tone shifted decisively. Security forces were deployed in force well before nightfall. Streets that had filled easily a night earlier were saturated with armed personnel.
“It was a massacre,” the engineer said of the violence that followed—an unprecedented massacre in Iran’s modern history. The business owner added: “Everybody you see knows someone who was killed, injured or is missing.”
Iran International reported this week that at least 12,000 people were killed in the crackdown, a figure leaked to us from Iran’s presidential office and the Supreme National Security Council amid the blackout—a sign that the death toll has grown so vast it has shaken the conscience of people inside the system, pushing them to let the number out.
“This is the same system that helped kill hundreds of thousands of people in Syria to keep Bashar al-Assad in power,” the business owner said. “How many do you think it’s willing to kill for its own survival?”
They described the crackdown continuing well beyond the demonstrations themselves. In several neighborhoods, they said, an informal curfew has taken hold: being outside after dark is enough to risk being stopped, searched or detained.
Thousands are believed to have been arrested. In the days before the protests, many ordinary Iranians posted on Instagram urging others to join demonstrations on Thursday and Friday. Many businesses—including ordinary shopkeepers—also posted videos saying they would close on Thursday and Friday to join the protests.
Many doctors posted basic guidance on how to help the injured, or invited people to contact them if they needed medical help. Now that the internet is down, those posts are still there, and security forces are using them to identify and arrest the people who shared them.
“It’s ongoing,” the journalist said. “They’re knocking on doors now, especially of people who posted Instagram stories just before the 8th, when everyone was pumped up and reckless.”
Even those who stayed home have not been spared.
The engineer said several students he knew who had avoided the protests, but had expressed general sympathy online, had since been summoned and charged.
Witnesses also described widespread slogans and chants in support of Reza Pahlavi, echoing through streets and squares before security forces moved in.
Contrary to Tehran’s narrative, all three insisted, those who took to the streets were not “terrorists” but fed-up ordinary Iranians struggling to make ends meet, looking for a way out of what they feel is irreversible deterioration.
“The economy has been going downhill for almost a decade,” the business owner said. “Before that, there were ups and downs. Now it’s all down—and people believe it will only get worse.”
In his factory, the engineer said, most workers joined the protests on both nights. One was seriously injured; another is still missing. Many, he noted, had voted for reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian just a year earlier.
“It shows they’re willing to try anything they think might improve their lives even a tiny bit.”
Messages from outside Iran also helped drive turnout. US President Donald Trump urged Iranians to keep taking to the streets, saying “help is on the way”.
The three said the posts—and other public signals of support—spread quickly through private chats and family networks inside Iran, encouraging people to go out despite the risk.
What followed, the three said, was as striking and as sudden as the demonstrations themselves: silence.
“It’s been a cull, not just of bodies, but of souls,” the business owner said. “I can’t see the will to fight right now.” The engineer described an atmosphere of pervasive grief. “The city smells of death,” he said. “As if human ashes have been spread all over Iran.”
None of the three supports foreign military intervention. Yet all said a majority of people they speak to now openly wish for a US attack, seeing no internal path forward. “It’s certainly the prevailing sentiment,” the journalist said.
The engineer described near-universal support for that view among his workers. “It’s sad in every sense of the word,” he said. “Utter and absolute despair.”
For now, under tightened security and a suffocating blackout, the question is what comes next. One of the three warned that the most damaging consequence may be the loss of agency itself—the sense that change, if it comes at all, must arrive from outside.
“I’d say Trump attempting regime change is as likely as Trump making a deal,” the business owner said. “No one knows where this ship is going. For now, most people are too seasick to even look ahead.”
Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations denied reports that security forces have killed protesters, telling an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Thursday that such accusations are “fabricated narratives” promoted by the United States and its allies.
Gholamhossein Darzi said Iranian security forces were confronting armed “ISIS-style terrorist cells” and violent separatist groups, which he claimed were funded and armed by foreign actors, including Israel.
Darzi also rejected accusations that authorities imposed internet restrictions to conceal harm to civilians. He said the measures were temporary and necessary to counter cyberattacks, protect national infrastructure and disrupt what he described as “communications among terrorist networks” operating inside Iran.
Iran’s mission said Tehran does not seek escalation or confrontation but warned that any act of aggression would be met with a “decisive, proportionate and lawful response” under Article 51 of the UN Charter, adding that this was “a statement of legal reality, not a threat.”
"This regime ... cannot be reformed. Let me be very clear, the Islamic Republic behaves like ISIS, and the Islamic Republic must be treated like ISIS," exiled Iranian activist Masih Alinejad told the United Nations Security Council, referring to Islamic State.
She was invited to address the world body, which included a representative from Iran, by the United States.
"This is how you can save lives," added Alinejad, whom a jury in a federal case last year found had been targeted by assassins directed by the Islamic Republic.
US lawmakers issued a bipartisan letter on Thursday urging the Trump administration to take immediate action to support protesters in Iran amid an intensified internet blackout and security crackdown by the authorities.
Representatives Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New York, and Dave Min, a Democrat from California, on Thursday co-authored the pleas for the administration to help Iranians maintain access to communications tools as protests continue across the country amid an internet blackout.
The lawmakers said Iranian authorities have restricted mobile data, disrupted cellular networks and sought to block access to satellite-based services in an effort to suppress dissent. They warned that internet shutdowns are being used alongside mass arrests and deadly force against protesters.
A review of public statements by Iran’s senior officials since late December suggests a marked hardening of tone as protests escalated, a shift that coincided with a sharp intensification of the state’s security response.
The protests began on December 28 amid soaring inflation. It initially drew a more measured response from the government.
But following a surge in demonstrations on January 8, and especially after a Supreme Leader speech the following day, officials reverted to a familiar framing: unrest portrayed as a foreign-backed security threat demanding a forceful response.
In an interview with Al Jazeera broadcast between January 9 and 12, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said protests had been peaceful from December 28 through January 7, but claimed that “armed terrorist elements linked to Israel and the United States” had subsequently turned them violent.
The judiciary soon echoed that framing.
Speaking to bazaar merchants on January 10, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said protesters had initially “demanded the country’s progress,” avoiding direct reference to the violent response.
Three days later, he called for the immediate trial of detainees, and in a January 14 post on X announced plans to televise the trials of what he called the “main culprits” in order to expose their alleged foreign ties.
Around the same time, footage of Ejei interrogating a detainee on state television circulated on social media.
‘No peace, only war’
The rhetorical shift became unmistakable on January 9, when Khamenei delivered a speech that many observers viewed as pivotal. He described protesters as “rioters under foreign influence” and urged security forces to confront them sternly.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, who until then had acknowledged protesters’ grievances and expressed openness to dialogue, followed suit.
“(They are) violent terrorists and rioters brought from abroad to attack mosques and civilians,” he said, urging the public “to stop the terrorists.”
Other senior figures reinforced the message. Security Chief Ali Larijani said on January 11 that forces were “controlling the protests with minimal damage,” despite emerging videos of a bloody crackdown.
“There will be no peace and no ceasefire, only war,” he warned protesters.
‘Conspiracy’
Some civilian officials sought to strike a more conciliatory tone, though without challenging the core narrative. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani condemned violence in general terms and said the internet blackout—entering its eighth day on Thursday—was a “temporary measure.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on January 13 that “protesting is the people’s legitimate right” and promised to address economic grievances, while also accusing protesters of “seeking violence.”
Military commanders, meanwhile, were more explicit. From January 8 through 14, senior officers repeatedly characterized the unrest as a “conspiracy” orchestrated by Israel and unnamed terrorist groups.
Army Commander Abdolrahim Mousavi praised the Basij domestic enforcement militia and police for “controlling the riots,” warned of possible direct military involvement, and described the protests as “a malicious conspiracy.”
Police Commander Ahmadreza Radan said “the level of confrontation has been raised,” warned that attacks on police stations “will not be tolerated,” and described police conduct as “mild” despite reports of mounting casualties.
Taken together, the statements reflect a rapid convergence among Iran’s political, judicial and security elites around a securitized narrative after January 8—one that recast the protests as an externally driven threat that can only be thwarted with bullets.
