Iranian forces fired from police station and mosque in Najafabad, witness says

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.