Bodies piled up, moved by bulldozers after Karaj massacre, witnesses say

The messages from people inside Iran appeal directly to Trump to abandon diplomacy and instead support what they describe as a nationwide struggle for freedom and democracy.

“If you want to help the people of Iran, what does negotiating with our enemies mean?” one message from Tehran said, adding: “Negotiations with this regime only buy time for repression.”

Other messages from inside Iran cite recent protests and the deadly response by security forces, saying negotiations would legitimize a government they say has blood on its hands.

“Negotiating with this clerical government means trampling on the blood of young people killed in the streets,” one message reads.

Messages received from the city of Qazvin warn that talks would demoralize protesters and undermine months of resistance. “We came to the streets to free Iran from these criminals,” one message said. “Trading with this regime is trading with the blood of the people.”

Several messages from Tehran reference Trump’s past statements and promises, saying many Iranians trusted his rhetoric about standing for freedom.

“You said you support liberty,” one message from Tehran reads. “Please be the voice of the Iranian people. We are dying in the streets for freedom.”

A message sent from Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan offers condolences to families of those killed and urges Trump to “stand with the Iranian nation, not the Islamic Republic.”

Other messages from inside Iran warn of what they describe as a long pattern of deception, saying past deals with Iranian authorities helped ease international pressure on the Islamic Republic even as repression continued at home.

Some messages stress that the protest movement will endure even without foreign assistance. “Even if there is no outside intervention, we will stand together,” one message says.

'Not our representatives'

Across the messages, a shared demand emerges that world leaders not view the Islamic Republic as representing the Iranian people and avoid negotiations that could confer legitimacy on it.

“Please negotiate with the brave people of Iran, not with this suppressive regime,” one message says. “Do not turn a blind eye to these crimes.”

“Tell Trump that no one negotiates with a killer; killers should only be punished,” another message said.

An eyewitness has described what he called an organized and deadly crackdown on protesters in the city of Najafabad in Iran’s Isfahan province, saying security forces opened fire on crowds from both a police station and a mosque.

In an audio message sent to Iran International on Sunday, the witness said large numbers of people took part in protests on January 8 and 9, and that authorities responded with what he described as a “massacre.”

He said plainclothes agents infiltrated the crowd on the evening of January 8 and steered protesters toward the governor’s office and a police station, where forces positioned inside the station opened fire.

Despite the bloodshed, he said protesters returned to the streets the following evening. He described the city on January 9 as resembling a “war zone,” saying security forces were deployed with heavy weapons and fired at demonstrators from Safa Mosque on Shariati Street.

He added that authorities later withheld victims’ bodies, forcing families to break into morgues to search for their relatives, and said Najafabad was effectively placed under conditions resembling martial law after the crackdown.

Two teenage girls, aged 15 and 17, who were arrested during protests on January 8, were raped by on duty soldiers at a detention facility, according to the sources.

Following their arrest at the site of the gathering, their families were denied any information regarding their whereabouts or their physical and mental state for nearly three weeks.

Sources close to the victims said the harm inflicted during their disappearance was not limited to physical violence.

In a separate account, sources detailed the experience of a young woman and another 17-year-old teenager.

According to the sources, the two were held in an informal detention center which they both described as belonging to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Sources said the victims were raped by individuals at the site during their detention.

According to sources, the severity of the trauma has led some of these victims to attempt suicide.

The sources said Alijanvand was shot by security forces with two live rounds, one striking his lower back and another his abdomen. His family spent five days searching hospitals, police stations and prisons across Isfahan province before identifying his body in the cold storage at Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery on January 13, the sources said.

According to the sources, Alijanvand's body was transferred later that night, on January 13, to Shahin Shahr's morgue.

Authorities initially refused to hand over the body and sought to have Alijanvand declared a “martyr,” a condition the family rejected, which would have required them to accept the state’s official account of the death rather than acknowledge that he was killed by state security forces.

Alijanvand was eventually buried under heavy security at around 4 a.m. on January 15, in a tightly controlled ceremony at Behesht-e Zahra Chaharbisheh cemetery in his hometown of Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran, with only five family members present and several plainclothes agents in attendance, the sources said.

Alijanvand was married and worked as a forklift driver at a brick factory, according to the people familiar with the matter.

“Reza worked from morning until night. He was deeply patriotic and hopeful for Iran’s freedom,” the source said, adding that Alijanvand believed Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi would return to the country.

Last month, Iran International reported that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history.

Eyewitnesses from protests in the city of Dezful said security forces carried out widespread repression on January 8 and 9, firing directly at protesters’ heads and faces.

Local accounts described the clashes escalating into open street war, with anyone seen outside coming under fire.

Security forces, according to residents, used motorcycles to surround demonstrators and fired pellet guns, wounding large numbers of people.

Witnesses also reported the use of finishing shots and simultaneous aerial and direct gunfire to spread fear. One resident present in the city estimated the death toll at around 400, with thousands detained.