Iranians in exile say few families have been spared by the brutal crackdown back home, describing to Iran International an unprecedented wave of killings as security forces unleash violence under a nationwide communications blackout.
The body bags at Tehran’s main cemetery were stacked in their many hundreds on rows and on shelves, according to an eyewitness, who found among the corpses of slain protestors his friend, a 41-year-old mother of two.
Recent statements by Iranian officials and their apparent acceptance by some foreign leaders have created a misleading sense of reassurance about the state’s response to the latest protests.
As Iran remains in a near-total communications blackout, three people in different cities described what they said were the biggest protests since 1979—followed by a crackdown so severe it left many seething with anger and hollowed out by anguish.
After Iran’s deadliest protest crackdown in decades, authorities have extended their response beyond the streets into morgues, hospitals and family homes, turning the protesters’ bodies into a key tool for suppressing dissent and controlling the narrative.
Iran’s judiciary said on Thursday that Erfan Soltani, a protester detained earlier this month, has not been sentenced to death, rejecting earlier claims by his family that such a ruling had been issued.
Armed security forces surrounded hospitals and government buildings in the city of Karaj after several days of deadly unrest and, in some cases, shot wounded protesters who could not move, witnesses and medical workers said.
It is the Islamic Republic as envisioned by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: no internet, no social media, hundreds of national and local newspapers shuttered, and mobile phones rendered largely useless.
As Iran steps up a deadly crackdown on nationwide demonstrations, some analysts warned that if US President Donald Trump does not act on his vow to protect protestors, the unrest he helped galvanize may be stamped out.
Tehran on Monday conducted large pro-government rallies in several cities intended to counter the nationwide protests challenging its rule, in a strategy it has deployed against previous bouts of mass unrest ultimately crushed by deadly force.
Iran's security forces are using lethal force against protesters nationwide, informed sources told Iran International, with preliminary estimates pointing to mass casualties as a sweeping crackdown unfolds amid a near-total internet shutdown.
Internet experts are warning that Iran’s sweeping nationwide internet blackout is being used to shield lethal crackdowns on protesters, cutting off evidence of state violence as unrest continues across the country.
A nationwide internet outage has gripped Iran, according to London-based internet monitoring group NetBlocks, shortly after massive crowds poured into the streets following calls for nationwide protests.
Iran executed a man convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on Wednesday, state media said, in a case authorities described as involving the transfer of sensitive security information and direct coordination with alleged Israeli operatives inside the country.
At least 36 people have been killed during ongoing protests in Iran, a US-based human rights group said, as merchant strikes and street demonstrations spread to 285 locations across 92 cities nationwide on the tenth day of unrest.
At least 29 protesters have been killed and more than 1,200 people arrested during nine days of nationwide protests in Iran, US-based human rights group HRANA reported on Monday.
Protests were held across Iran for the eighth consecutive day, with demonstrations, strikes, and student unrest reported at 222 locations across 78 cities in 26 provinces, a US-based human rights group reported, as the overall death toll rose to 20.
A landmark criminal lawsuit filed in Argentina by victims of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement signals a new push to hold Islamic Republic officials accountable beyond Iran’s borders.
Eight Baha’i women were arrested on Saturday morning after reporting to the Isfahan Office for the Enforcement of Sentences and were transferred to a local prison to begin serving their prison terms, Iran International has learned.
Iranian security and law enforcement forces prevented families of political prisoners executed in the 1980s, including during the mass killings of summer 1988, from entering Tehran’s Khavaran cemetery on Friday to commemorate their relatives, according to activists and witnesses.
A 56-year-old Iranian radiologist who evaded execution but received a long prison term for his participation in Iran’s 2022 protests says he has launched a hunger strike to protest what he describes as “inhumane” treatment in prison.
Iran carried out at least 1,922 executions in 2025, more than twice the number recorded the previous year and the highest figure documented in over a decade, according to a new annual report published by a US-based human rights group.