More than 500 people have been killed in Iran, a rights group said on Sunday, signalling a dramatic escalation in regime violence against the growing protest movement.
The surging death toll follows a significant crackdown over the past three days, with reports of soldiers shutting down entire towns and a new close-range shoot-to-kill policy.
Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), a US-based group, said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested. The Telegraph was unable to verify the figures independently.
It puts the series of protests, now entering their third week, on course to be the bloodiest since 2019.
Because of suppression of the media and Iran’s internet blackout, the figure is likely to be an underestimate, as anecdotal reports come in of hospitals overwhelmed with seriously wounded protesters shot by regime forces.
Footage emerged on Sunday showing dozens of body bags dumped on the roads outside the coroner’s office in Tehran. People were forced to identify their relatives outside, while others crowded around government screens showing the bloodied faces of those killed.
The video was allegedly taken on Thursday, before the regime ordered a harsher crackdown on demonstrators, indicating the death toll was already significant.
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Doctors reported an increasing trend of protesters being shot in the head and neck, often at close range.
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said on Sunday that unverified reports suggested more than 2000 people may have been killed.
It denounced the regime’s sweeping crackdown as a “mass killing” and a “major international crime against the people of Iran”.
Donald Trump has threatened to “get involved” in the unrest, warning that he would hit Iran “very, very hard, where it hurts” if the regime’s forces continued killing protesters.
The US President is said to be contemplating military action and has been presented with a range of targets, including elements of Iran’s security apparatus responsible for the bloody crackdown.
However, US commanders in the region have told officials that they need to “consolidate US military positions and prepare defences” before carrying out any strikes that could trigger retaliation.
The protests, initially triggered by rampant inflation, are thought to have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across all of Iran’s provinces. Protesters are now openly calling for an end to the clerical rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
The uprising is more intense and widespread than the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests, when at least 551 people were killed, according to HRANA.
In November 2019, between 1000 and 1500 protesters were killed in widespread demonstrations that were triggered by a sudden increase in the fuel price.
The group’s updated death toll, published on Sunday afternoon, was more than double its previous figure issued on Saturday.
Footage emerged on Sunday morning purporting to show live ammunition being used against protesters in the town of Abyek, northwest of Tehran.
BBC Persia reported that large numbers of heavily armed soldiers had flooded towns such as Lushan and Chalus, smothering the ability to protest.
Senior regime officials have now suggested that protesters should face the death penalty.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s security chief, distinguished between protests over economic hardship – which he called “completely understandable” – and “riots”, accusing the latter of using methods “very similar to terrorist groups”.
On Saturday night, thousands of people took to the streets despite the threat of security forces opening fire.
Videos show large crowds in several cities, including Tehran and Mashhad in the east, where vehicles were set ablaze. The footage emerged despite a near-total internet shutdown, which has rendered communication with the outside world largely impossible.
The blackout “is now past the 60-hour mark ... The censorship measure presents a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of Iranians at a key moment for the country’s future”, the monitoring group NetBlocks said early on Sunday.
Ahmad-Reza Radan, the national police chief, said authorities made “significant” arrests on Saturday night, without giving details.
On Sunday, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, warned the White House against a “miscalculation”.
If Iran is attacked, he said Israel and all US bases and ships “will be our legitimate targets”.
Two American C-17A military transport planes departed Germany and appeared to be heading for the Middle East on Saturday evening, as speculation mounted about a potential strike.
The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that any military action would need to be carefully weighed to avoid galvanising public support for the regime. Israel’s military is reportedly on high alert in the event of a US strike.
Kemi Badenoch suggested on Sunday that she could support Western military intervention to help the protesters against Iran’s leaders.
In an interview with the BBC, the Tory leader said: “Iran would very happily wipe out the UK if it thought it could get away with it. It’s tried to kill people on our soil, it is an enemy … I don’t have an issue with removing a regime that is trying to harm us.”
Asked about the possibility of a Western intervention, she said the situation was hypothetical but “the calculation always has to be about our national interest”.