The source had only a few moments to write down his account until he lost access to the internet. He had contacted me from northeastern Iran. He told me how officials in Mashhad, the country’s second largest city, were disposing of corpses – the victims of the Iranian government’s crackdown on protestors. “They were putting bodies, in some cases people who still showed signs of life, into a mass grave near a warehouse outside of Mashhad…. [S]ome of their mobile phones were still ringing – probably relatives who had remained unaware and were worried.”
The source was unable to share images or to confirm the number of bodies, and I wasn’t able to independently verify the details. But what I was told aligns overwhelmingly with information that has emerged from other parts of Iran over the past few days. Reports on the killings have been slowly accumulating, seeping slowly out of the country despite a blanket shutdown of the internet and telephone lines.
What is clear is that, under cover of the all-encompassing information blackout, the authorities of the Islamic Republic have been trying to dispose of the many victims of their brutal assault on protestors. It remains hard to say precisely how many have died. The private London-based television network Iran International claims that the numbers of the dead has reached 12,000, which it describes as “the largest killing in the country’s contemporary history.” Some sources put the total even higher.
But even if the final figure falls short of those estimates, it seems increasingly likely that thousands have perished. The Reuters news agency cited an Iranian government official who put the death toll at 2,000; the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says that at least 2,571 have lost their lives. This is government-organized death on a scale comparable to the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah and paved the way for Ayatollah Khomeini’s seizure of power.
I have little reason to doubt the account sent to me from Mashhad. Within the past few days, activists have managed to send out grim video images from the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center on the outskirts of Tehran. The footage shows dozens of bodies in black bags laid out haphazardly on the floor of a large hall, with weeping families screaming and weeping as they move from one body to the next, searching for their relatives. Another video from the same facility shows body bags piled up on sidewalks outside the morgue.
Many of my sources inside the country say that the authorities seem to be trying to dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible. If a body is not claimed by family members within 24 hours, I was told, they confiscate it and bury it as “unknown.” One reason is that there isn’t enough morgue capacity to store all the bodies and to carry out the legal and administrative procedures. The bodies may begin to decompose, smell, or serve as a source of disease. But officials are also clearly worried that the dead might be found and documented by independent sources – which might then be added to a growing indictment of the regime.
Many families told me that the authorities have demanded money in exchange for handing over the bodies. Sums ranging from 100 million tomans (approximately $670) to one billion tomans (approximately $6,700) have been cited. One source inside Iran told the U.S. television network CBS of a woman from the city of Kermanshah who traveled to Iran to recover the body of her 17-year-old niece, which she ultimately “stole” and spirited away from a morgue.
Persian-language social media platforms are now flooded with posts in which users share accounts of relatives and friends being shot and killed. These messages tell harrowing stories of violence – but they are also striking because they openly articulate their hatred and resentment of the government. Despite the mass killings, many Iranians remain viscerally committed to defiance of the regime.
As a result of the slaughter, the million-strong protests around Iran now seem to have ebbed. People in Tehran say that a shroud has been spread over the city. One witness in Tehran told me: “You may not believe it, but people are so frightened, and the security presence is so oppressive that they can barely even talk to one another in the street.”
Meanwhile, many young people say their employers have informed them that “the internet will not be restored for now.” It appears that the Islamic Republic has decided to keep the internet shut down, possibly indefinitely, leaving the country reliant on a domestic intranet network cut off from the outside world. This will have serious consequences for the Iranian economy. Yet the authorities are prepared to accept losses amounting to millions of dollars in order to preserve their own survival.
For now, Iranians in exile are reduced to sending desperate texts to their loved ones via messaging apps. But many of them – far too many – are going unanswered.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
Mahtab Qolizadeh
Mahtab Qolizadeh is an Iranian journalist in exile currently working for Iran International and various western publications. She was arrested by the Iranian government in 2021.
