More than 12,000 feared dead following protests in Iran, as video shows bodies lined up in morgue

Information coming out of Iran on Tuesday suggests that authorities’ crackdown to end more than two weeks of widespread anti-government protests has likely been much deadlier than activists outside the country have reported. With phone lines open again for calls from inside the Islamic Republic, two sources, including one inside Iran, told News themezone on Tuesday that at least 12,000, and possibly as many as 20,000 people, have been killed.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in Parliament on Tuesday that the UK government believed “2,000 people may have been killed, but there have been more. My fear is that the number could turn out to be significantly higher.”

It has been incredibly difficult to piece together the truth because Iran’s hardline rulers have cut off internet access and phone service in the country for the past five days. While Iran’s complete internet shutdown remained in effect for a fifth day, some Iranians were able to make phone calls outside the country on Tuesday, although it was still not possible to call Iran from abroad.

A source inside Iran who could be reached told News themezone on Tuesday that activist groups working to compile a complete death toll from the protests, based on reports from medical officials across the country, believed the figure was at least 12,000, and possibly as high as 20,000.

The same source said security forces were visiting numerous private hospitals across Tehran, threatening staff with handing over the names and addresses of those being treated for injuries suffered in the protests.

News themezone has not been able to independently verify the huge death toll indicated by the source, which is many times higher than the figures reported by most activist groups independently in recent days, although those groups have always made clear that their figures are likely underestimates.

Opposition television network Iran International said on Tuesday its reporting suggested some 12,000 people had been killed. A source in Washington with contacts in Iran told News themezone on Tuesday that a credible source had told him the number was probably between 10,000 and 12,000.

Iranian officials have not provided regular official estimates of total deaths from the unrest. Reuters on Tuesday cited an unnamed Iranian official as saying that some 2,000 people had been killed since the protests began on Dec. 28, and blaming the violence on foreign-influenced “terrorists,” even suggesting that agitators had been paid to foment chaos.

News themezone has verified that a video posted online Tuesday shows the bodies of at least 366 and probably more than 400 people killed amid the protest piled up in a morgue in a Tehran suburb. The video appears to show forensic personnel documenting gruesome wounds on the bodies and crowds of people apparently trying to identify the dead. Visible injuries are extensive and include gunshot wounds, shotgun wounds, cuts and other serious injuries.

New video shows seriously injured bodies lined up in the morgue

An Iranian activist and blogger who identifies himself only as Vahid Online first posted the shocking 16-minute clip. Vahid said it was sent to him by a source who traveled about 600 miles to upload the video amid the communications blackout.

The graphic video shows people with what appear to be wounds caused by bullets and shotgun pellets, as well as other injuries, and piles of bloody clothing inside the morgue grounds.

The protests, which prompted warnings of US military intervention from President Trump, were sparked in late December by anger over a new rise in the cost of living in Iran’s sanctions-hit economy. They quickly turned into massive demonstrations across Iran’s 31 provinces, with tens of thousands of people chanting for the downfall of the country’s Islamic rulers.

Even the lower death toll reported by Cooper in Britain on Tuesday, if confirmed, would exceed any casualty figure officially reported in past anti-regime protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought the current government to power.

When Trump was asked Tuesday how many people had died in the protests in Iran, he responded: “No one has been able to give me an exact number.”

Trump warned several times as protests intensified last week that if the Iranian regime killed protesters, the United States would take action, without ever specifying a red line that might provoke a response, or what the response might be.

President Trump tells Iranian protesters that help is on the way

“Iranian patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the murderers and abusers. You will pay a high price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless murder of protesters STOP. HELP IS ON THE WAY,” Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday.

He again offered no details on what help the United States could provide to Iran’s long-stifled domestic opposition.

The president’s national security team was scheduled to hold a meeting at the White House on Tuesday to discuss its options, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. It was unclear whether the president himself would attend. he has been Informed about a wide range of military and covert tools that could be used against Iran, far beyond conventional airstrikes, according to two Pentagon officials who spoke to News themezone on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters.

A repression “much worse than we can imagine”

“The information we are receiving shows that the violent repression [against] “The protests have probably been much worse than we can imagine,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, who heads the Norway-based activist organization Iran Human Rights.

“The red lines of the entire international community have been crossed,” Amiry-Moghaddam said. “We have a mechanism called responsibility to protect civilians against serious human rights violations, against mass murder… so not only [the] “The United States, not just President Trump, but the European Union, basically every country, has a responsibility to stop these atrocities.”

He did not call for U.S. military action, but urged world powers to “provide Iranians with more means to communicate with the world, because that’s what regimes do: They turn off the Internet. Basically, it’s like solitary confinement. They put Iranians in solitary confinement and start torturing them and killing them.”

He told News themezone that his organization had received a video Monday night showing the aftermath of an alleged attack by security forces that left 75 people dead in Mazandaran province, about a three-hour drive north of Tehran. Amiry-Moghaddam said she could not share the video or the specific city where the alleged assault occurred because the information “can be traced” and would therefore endanger her sources.

“This is what indicates that the magnitude has been much worse than we expected,” Amiry-Moghaddan said.

Internet access and text messaging services remained blocked in Iran on Tuesday, largely maintaining the blackout that began the night of Jan. 8, when thousands of people appeared to heed a call from Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, to make their voices heard.

The protests (and security forces’ actions against them) seemed to escalate sharply for a couple of days starting that night.

On Tuesday, Iran’s police chief claimed that the protests had been ordered from outside the country and that inside Iran they had faced “terrorists” paid to cause unrest.

Iranians want “anyone who can overthrow the Islamic Republic”

Amiry-Moghaddan told News themezone that many Iranians would not believe that narrative from their leaders.

“The Iranian people are fed up with the regime and desperate to get out of this system,” he said. “I remember I used to ask a lot of people, from different backgrounds, ‘Who would you support?’ And they all basically say that we would support anyone who can overthrow the Islamic Republic. Iran is a country with many different types of people, different opinions. “Some would like to have monarchies, others oppose monarchy, but I think the priority is to eliminate this regime.”

Pahlavi has said he is ready to return to lead Iran, despite not having been there since his father, the US-backed shah, fled nearly 50 years ago amid intense public outrage over his rule. He told Norah O’Donnell of News themezone on Monday that the Iranian people “need action to be taken.”

“The best way to ensure that there will be fewer deaths in Iran is to intervene sooner, so that this regime finally collapses and puts an end to all the problems we face,” he said.

Pahlavi said he has communicated with the Trump administration, but did not disclose any details of those conversations.

Amiry-Moghaddan said that an “absolute majority” of Iranians “do not want the regime, like more than 80%.”

But he said that 80% were “roughly divided into three groups, those who wanted to have [the] the son of the shah, those who oppose the monarchy and those who have not made a decision.