When Jaafar Al-Yassi went to the forensic medicine center in Iran’s Ilam province to receive the body of his cousin, he did not expect the farewell to turn into a heavy financial bargain. He told Alhurra: “We submitted a request to receive my cousin’s body, but the security authorities informed us that we would not be able to take it unless we paid two billion Iranian tomans – about $16,000. That is an enormous amount.”
Al-Yassi’s story is not an exception. Since protests erupted in late December, human rights organizations have reported thousands of deaths in various Iranian cities. Families and activists say the authorities are demanding large sums of money and written pledges in exchange for releasing bodies, amid strict security measures and a blanket media blackout.
Reports issued by international and local human rights organizations indicate that thousands of protesters have been killed by security forces. Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2026 that “Iranian authorities carried out executions in 2025 on a scale not seen since the late 1980s.”
The report added that security forces committed mass killings of protesters and bystanders, noting a “coordinated escalation in the use of unlawful and lethal force since January 8, 2026, including the killing and wounding of protesters and passersby with gunfire to the head and torso.” The organization stressed that these massacres were carried out amid internet shutdowns and restrictions on communications to conceal the true scale of the violations.
Despite security restrictions and internet blackouts, Alhurra was able to contact Al-Yassi through a network of activists inside and outside Iran. He said his cousin, “the only child of his parents – had been unemployed since graduating from university more than six years ago. He went out with a group of friends to demand job opportunities and protest the economic situation, but he was met with a barrage of bullets.”
He added that the authorities gave the family a choice: either pay the money or sign a confession stating that their son had been a member of the Basij forces and was killed by protesters. He says the parents have so far been unable to secure the required amount.
Activists and relatives of those killed in the protests, living in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and in Europe, told Alhurra that forensic medicine centers and hospitals in several Iranian cities have been crowded for weeks with the bodies of protesters. They said many families inside Iran have been unable the bodies of their loved ones because of the large sums demanded and the written admissions and pledges demanded of them.
They added that authorities have informed families that the bodies will be buried in unknown graves if they are not collected. They have further banned mourning ceremonies and labeled the dead as “saboteurs” backed by the West.
“For every bullet fired at protesters, the Islamic Republic regime demands that the victims’ families pay three thousand dollars to receive the body. Many of the dead were hit by three bullets, meaning their families are forced to pay around nine thousand dollars—more than a billion in local currency—at a time when the salary of an educated and experienced person in Iran does not exceed two hundred dollars a month,” Iranian-American activist and investigative journalist Reza Farnoud told Alhurra.
Alongside the crackdown on protests, Iranian authorities have carried out executions of activists and opposition figures. Statistics from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights indicate that 331 people have been executed since the beginning of this year up to the completion of this report.
The Canada-based Hana organization says security forces killed thousands of protesters over the course of about one month, confirming by name the deaths of 6,883 people, including 164 children and 214 members of the security forces. It also reported the arrest of more than 272 citizens in Kurdish cities during January.
By contrast, the government-run Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs announced—according to statistics published by the Tasnim website—that about 3,117 people were killed during the protests, including 2,427 security personnel and civilians.
Iranian Kurdish activist Jino Bikzadeh Babamiri told Alhurra that the authorities “continue to demand huge sums of money from families in exchange of bodies of protesters killed by security forces,” adding that some families were also required to sign fabricated confessions or written pledges to remain silent about the circumstances of death.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
