Massacre in the Dark; Report on the Bloody Suppression of Protests in Iran Amid Communication Blackouts

While the internet in Iran remains cut off and communications face severe disruptions and restrictions, information regarding the bloody suppression of nationwide protests is being released drop by drop. In this situation, human rights organizations are striving to document the extent of the crimes committed during the protests in Iran and to provide a clear picture of what has transpired in the country over the past three weeks. The Iran Human Rights Organization, based in Norway, is one of these entities that has recently published multiple reports on the dimensions of the suppression, killings, and arrests. In its latest report, it stated that the documented statistics significantly diverge from the reality of the massacre of protesters. Based on documents received from reliable sources, the Iran Human Rights Organization has recorded the deaths of 3,428 protesters but emphasized that due to the extent of these crimes and severe communication restrictions and internet shutdowns, providing accurate statistics is impossible. Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam, the director of the Iran Human Rights Organization, stated: 'The crimes committed were based on a single order from Ali Khamenei, and the Islamic Republic has undoubtedly committed one of the largest mass killings of protesters.' Some sources have reported the deaths of between 5,000 and 20,000 individuals during the recent protests. According to estimates by the Iran Human Rights Organization, around 25,000 people have been arrested over the past three weeks. Given the statements from Islamic Republic officials and the continuation of torture policies and forced confessions from prisoners, concerns about heavy sentences, including executions, have increased. Several of the detainees are under 18 years old and are considered children under international law. Based on information received by the Iran Human Rights Organization, two injured teenagers died due to severe bleeding and lack of medical facilities in the Shiraz prison infirmary. Additionally, a detained teenager named Hossein Ahmadzadeh lost both of his eyes due to being hit by shotgun pellets, and his skull is filled with pellets. The report states that two other detained teenagers named Kourosh Fatemi and Omid Farahani were shot in the back and have become paralyzed. The Iran Human Rights Organization also noted in another section of its report: 'The medical situation in Shiraz prison is so critical that one of the prison doctors, named Dr. Jafarzadeh, was arrested after insisting on treating the injured, as the medical staff had been ordered not to treat the injured so that they would die from bleeding.' According to limited accounts relayed by eyewitnesses or families under conditions of internet shutdown and communication restrictions, a similar situation prevails in other prisons as well. Arrested protesters are deprived of telephone contact and visits with their families, have no access to medical services, and given the very high number of detainees, the sanitary conditions in the prisons are reported to be very poor. Furthermore, according to reports received by Voice of America, independent lawyers are unable to enter the cases of the protesters, and families of the detainees are told they must only refer to the list of lawyers approved by the judiciary. The recent nationwide protests in Iran have turned into one of the bloodiest periods of repression in the history of the Islamic Republic, presenting a picture of widespread killings, organized internet shutdowns, and a vast wave of arrests and enforced disappearances. The protests of January 2025 are seen as a continuation and escalation of a cycle that began with the uprisings of 2009, 2017-2018, 2019, and 2021, this time accompanied by a much broader scope of governmental violence and human casualties. Based on the compilation of various sources, including international media, human rights groups, and medical sources, estimates of the total number of deaths in the recent protests fluctuate between about 5,000 and 20,000. CBS, citing activists and medical sources, reported a possible figure of 12,000 to 20,000 deaths, while some organizations based outside Iran have documented the deaths of at least 3,400 protesters by late January. Since the evening of January 8, 2025, Iran has entered a nearly complete internet blackout that, according to measurements by traffic monitoring organizations such as NetBlocks, lasted at least over 200 hours and then over 280 hours, effectively cutting off a country of 90 million from the outside world. NetBlocks and other observers state that national connectivity dropped to about 1 to 5 percent of normal levels just minutes after the shutdown began, and only in very limited intervals was controlled, filtered, and selective access to some specific services established; the traffic pattern, including on several specific platforms, indicates a strategy of 'whitelisting access,' where limited access to some government-approved services replaces free internet. Technical and human rights sources confirm that during this blackout, the 'National Information Network' (intranet) was also completely separated from the global internet for periods, with only some internal services being available in a limited manner; a network that has been developed over the years with the aim of creating a highly controlled informational environment. Simultaneously, reports indicate that the government has attempted to minimize the possibility of coordinating protests, documenting human rights violations, and connecting families with their relatives by restricting messaging apps, applying multilayer filtering on VPNs, and even cutting off mobile phones and voice calls extensively.