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US conservative commentator Mark Levin told Iran International on Thursday that Iran has effectively become a “concentration camp” amid a deadly crackdown on protests, urging the United States to act to help topple the Islamic Republic.
“I can only speak for myself. I don’t need any more reminding about how bad this regime is and that somebody better do something about it, because if it’s not us, nobody’s going to do anything about it,” Levin said.
Levin said recent reports of increased US military deployments to the region suggested Washington was keeping its options open, although he said he had no insight into whether military action was being considered.
“Most revolutions, including America’s own, needed outside help,” he said. “What is happening in Iran is a counter-revolution against a regime that rules by force and fear.”
Levin also criticized decades of US engagement with Tehran, arguing that successive administrations believed the Islamic Republic could be managed through negotiations.
“This is an ideological regime,” he said. “They talk, they negotiate, but they have no intention of abandoning their mission, and that is why they so brutally suppress their own people.”
Iran has faced widespread internet disruptions during renewed unrest, with only limited information reaching the outside world through satellite connections and virtual private networks.
“I can tell you that tens of millions of Americans stand with the people of Persia. There’s no question about it,” Levin said. “We know the regime there is Hitleresque, Nazi-like. The regime is slaughtering innocent people, especially young people, raping them, and pillaging towns. We know that regime is the enemy of the American people. They’ve made that abundantly clear.”
Iran International has reported that at least 12,000 people have been killed since the protests began, while CBS News has cited estimates placing the death toll as high as 20,000.
Sources told Iran International on Wednesday that hospitals and morgues are facing shortages of body bags, forcing authorities to store bodies in corridors and other areas.
“We know they still want to build nuclear weapons. They back terrorism in our country, throughout Europe, and across the Middle East, but the people they terrorize the most are the Persian people,” Levin said. “I feel horrible about what’s taking place, and all I can do is use my platforms to draw as much attention to this as I can.”
Levin said Iranians possess a long civilizational history distinct from other countries in the region and said those who emigrate to the United States often integrate successfully and contribute to American society.
“If the people of Iran were free, the contributions they could make to science, culture, and technology would be extraordinary,” he said. “Instead, they are focused on survival under repression.”
A message from eyewitnesses in the industrial town of Fooladshahr, near Isfahan, sent to Iran International describes what locals say is a “massacre” of protesters and intense pressure on grieving families, including a case in which relatives kept a child’s body at home overnight using ice from neighbors because they could not bury him.
According to residents, families have been forced into long lines to wash the bodies of their loved ones, while security forces allegedly pressure them to register the dead as members of the Basij militia, a paramilitary force under the Revolutionary Guards.
In one reported case, the victim was a 16-year-old boy killed by shotgun pellets, and his mother at Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery had to wash corpses one by one just to find her son’s body among them, a scene that those present say reveals the scale and unprecedented nature of the killings.
A wounded Iranian protester played dead inside a plastic body bag for three days to hide from security forces and heard what he believed to be fellow protestors being summarily executed, a rights group reported on Thursday.
The IHRDC reported that the teenager, whose name it withheld for his safety, was held among bodies of slain protestors transferred to the Kahrizak Forensic Center south of Tehran where he stayed motionless until his family eventually found him alive.
It added it was not able to independently verify the account as a nationwide internet blackout persists in Iran.
The youth, who is under 18, was in critical condition after suffering gunshot wounds.
“During the three days he was held among the bodies transferred to Kahrizak, he heard the ringing of cell phones among the corpses and smelled the intense stench of decay,” the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said, citing the teenager’s account.
The group said the young man described hearing gunfire after sounds from wounded detainees, suggesting they were summarily executed.
“The witness reported that whenever groans from the wounded were heard, they were shortly followed by the sound of gunfire and the cessation of the groaning, strongly indicating that security forces delivered fatal shots to wounded individuals who were still alive,” IHRDC said.
“These details raise serious concerns regarding the treatment of the wounded, violations of the right to life, and extrajudicial killings, including of minors, during the suppression of protests,” the rights group added.
"What could change the odds in their favor is the much needed neutralization of the regime's instruments of repression, which can only occur based on what the President stated a few days ago," US-based exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi told Fox News on Thursday.
Tehran crushed protests earlier this month, in the deadliest crackdown on unrest in the nearly fifty-year history of the Islamic Republic.
Amid the violence, US President encouraged Iranian protestors to take over institutions and said "HELP IS ON ITS WAY," in a social media post.
Trump this week said he relented from an attack after Iran stood down on plans to execute 837 protestors in a single day and told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday that Washington and Iran would hold talks, without elaborating.
"You should not believe a word the regime says, because as an act of desperation," Prince Pahlavi added. "They're trying to buy time, it will make the same false promises that they've done before, and you cannot rely on their words at all."
In a separate message posted on his social media, the prince issued a new appeal to Iranians in the diaspora to attend rallies and better coordinate campaigns in support of protesters inside Iran.
In his video message, Pahlavi thanked Iranians abroad for “large and magnificent” rallies worldwide, saying their solidarity gives protesters at home “strength and hope” and urging them to avoid infighting.
The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) said a wounded protester who remained motionless inside a plastic body bag for three days out of fear that security forces would kill him was a teenager under the age of 18, according to new information obtained by the rights group.
IHRDC said the teenager was held among bodies of slain protestors transferred to the Kahrizak Forensic Center, south of Tehran, where he stayed still to avoid detection until his family eventually found him alive.
“During the three days he was held among the bodies transferred to Kahrizak, he heard the ringing of cell phones among the corpses and smelled the intense stench of decay,” the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said, citing the teenager’s account.
The group said the witness described hearing gunfire after sounds from wounded detainees, suggesting they were summarily executed.
“The witness reported that whenever groans from the wounded were heard, they were shortly followed by the sound of gunfire and the cessation of the groaning, strongly indicating that security forces delivered fatal shots to wounded individuals who were still alive,” IHRDC said.
“These details raise serious concerns regarding the treatment of the wounded, violations of the right to life, and extrajudicial killings, including of minors, during the suppression of protests,” the rights group added.
