‘Genocide under digital darkness’ - the horrors of Iranian crackdown

Thursday, 22 January 2026

“You have 10 minutes to cry,” came the officer’s curt command to the couple as he revealed the corpse of their twentysomething daughter, gunned down in the historic streets of Isfahan.

After searching mortuaries and hospitals for days when she didn’t come home from the protests, they paid 700 million tomans (7 billion rials, or NZ$11,200) in so-called bullet money demanded by the security forces and were driven five hours to another town, where her body had been thrown into an old grave.

Yet in one respect they were fortunate. A complete communications and internet shutdown has left tens of thousands of Iranians with no idea if their loved ones are alive or dead. The regime has been trying to stifle protests with what one doctor has called “genocide under cover of digital darkness”.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has admitted that “several thousands” have been killed since the demonstrations began mor than three weeks ago.

In a broadcast to the nation on state TV, he blamed protesters themselves, describing them as “foot soldiers of the United States” and claiming that “rioters were armed with live ammunition that was imported from abroad”.

But The Sunday Times has obtained a report from doctors on the ground which says at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured, most of them in two days of slaughter in the most brutal crackdown by the clerical regime in its 47-year existence.

Most of the victims are thought to have been younger than 30. Heartbreaking Instagram posts record deaths of a female fashion designer of 23; three young footballers — including one who was just 17 years old and captained a youth team in Tehran; a champion basketball player of 21; a fledgling film director; and a student hoping to study for a doctorate at Bristol University, whose first protest was his last.

“This is a whole new level of brutality,” said Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon and the medical director of Munich MED, which treated many of those injured during the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 and helped create a network of doctors across Iran that produced the report. “[In 2022] they were using rubber bullets and pellet guns, taking out eyes. This time they are using military-grade weapons, and what we are seeing are gunshot and shrapnel wounds in the head, neck and chest.

“I’ve spoken to dozens of doctors on the ground and they are really shocked and crying,” he added. “These are surgeons who have seen war.”

The doctors spoke using Starlink — satellite technology produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which bypasses traditional internet infrastructure and has been the only way to communicate since 8pm on January 8, when the internet was turned off. About 50,000 to 60,000 Starlink terminals have been smuggled into the country, but using them brings great personal risk, as they are banned by the regime and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces have been out searching for dishes.

The doctors’ testimony, as well as graphic video, was provided to The Sunday Times by Parasta, as it is too risky for people on the ground to speak to outsiders.

The accounts reflect the scenes in graphic videos that have emerged from Iran, as well as voicenotes and descriptions by some eyewitnesses crossing the border into Turkey. They tell of IRGC forces and its Basij militia on motorbikes using live ammunition from Kalashnikovs and even machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks to mow people down. There were reports, too, of Hashd al-Shaabi, Shia militias from Iraq, being bussed in.

Figures compiled by staff in eight major eye hospitals and 16 emergency departments across the country reveal that at least 16,500 to 18,000 people have been killed and 330,000 to 360,000 injured, including children and pregnant women. At least 700 to 1000 people have lost an eye. One eye hospital in Tehran alone, Noor Clinic, has documented 7000 eye injuries. “There are so many shotgun-related eye injuries that we do not know whom to treat first,” said one ophthalmologist.

Many have died because of a shortage of blood. Although medical staff in several hospitals were donating blood themselves to keep patients alive, in some cases security forces refused to allow blood transfusions.

“We fight for hours to save lives, only to lose patients because they are not allowed to receive blood transfusions,” said one surgeon in Tehran.

“This is genocide under the cover of digital darkness,” said Parasta. “They said they would kill until this stops, and that’s what they are doing. These are deliberately cautious minimum numbers,” he added. Many of the wounded do not go to hospital, fearing being dragged from their hospital beds by security forces, as seen in some of the videos smuggled out.

One protester who came out of Iran told The Sunday Times that “injured people who were shot in the eyes and had their eyes removed were being immediately abducted from the operating theatres by security forces”.

Basij militia have reportedly been dragging bodies from the street and taking them to other cities for burial so there is no record, or demanding large sums — such as the one paid by the couple to see their dead daughter.

“It’s horrific, a real-life horror story. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Saba Latif, 29, from Isfahan, currently studying in Chicago, who first protested at the age of 14 in the failed 2009 Green Revolution and is in touch with activists and eyewitnesses. “Entire families were shot dead in their cars. The streets even smelled of blood.

“One nurse in Isfahan told me [that] every two hours 50 to 100 bodies were being taken out, and that’s just one hospital,” she added. “Imagine the whole city, the whole country? Everyone I know has either lost someone or knows of people missing in their family circles — I’m dead worried about my own family.”

Among those whose fate was unknown was Toomaj Salehi, 34, a rapper whose songs have openly criticised the regime. He was arrested during the last protests in 2022 and held for 753 days.

“The day before the internet was cut off, he told us that IRGC agents were constantly following him, harassing him and sending threats to force him into silence,” said his cousin Arezou Egbhali, who lives in France. “He is in Rasht — the same city where a world-champion bodybuilder was shot dead on Friday, January 9 — and we knew he would be on the streets.”

For 10 days they heard nothing. “We were all facing the same terrifying question: are Toomaj and our loved ones OK?” she added.

But yesterday (Saturday) Toomaj managed to get a message through to say he was all right. “It was a direct call, and as phones are being monitored, all he could say was he was OK,” said Negin Niknaam, another cousin who works as his manager.

While the digital blackout means most stories are as yet untold, what is clear is the astonishing bravery of protesters — and the tragedy that so many are so young.

Although this movement started with merchants and shopkeepers in the bustling Grand Bazaar in Tehran closing their doors on December 28 in protest at hyperinflation and the weakening currency, they were quickly joined by university students and young people shouting “Death to Khamenei” and demanding regime change.

The protests spread across the country to cities and towns in all 31 provinces, and were stepped up from January 8 following a social media message from Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, calling for Iranians to take to the streets en masse.

Many of his countrymen had long dismissed the self-styled crown prince as irrelevant. But this time his call seemed to resonate, even among former critics. “Everyone came out, from toddlers to old people,” said a flower shop owner in Tehran. And it was young people at the forefront, including his own son, who were then arrested.

“This is effectively a Gen Z uprising,” said Holly Dagres, senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of the Iranist newsletter. It follows on from what she described as “the world’s first Gen Z revolution”, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that started in September 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested for “bad hijab” — accused of falling foul of stringent clothing rules.

Young people found ways round censorship and surveillance, gathering in small cells and communicating using chat rooms on gaming sites. Although a massive crackdown eventually saw people leave the streets, in some ways it was a victory, with many women refusing to cover their heads. In November, a video went viral of a group of young people on a street corner in Tehran jamming to Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, not a hijab in sight.

“The Iranian Gen Z is part of a globalised Gen Z, the first to be born with the internet at their fingertips, even if they have to use VPNs to access things,” said Dagres. “Young Iranians see how the rest of the world live and feel left behind.

“They wear Western clothes, use English slang in their Persian, watch the same films and music as Western youth, so have created this subculture. They want a normal life, and the regime is not prepared to give it. When you see them not wearing hijab or jamming on street corners, that’s not because of reforms from the Islamic regime; it’s because these kids don’t bow to pressure from the Islamic regime.”

The latest mass protests are the fourth wave since the 2009 Green Revolution: people came out on the streets in 2017 over the economy and in 2019 over hikes in fuel prices. Each time, the regime’s response was swift and brutal: round-ups by security forces and the killing or maiming of unarmed civilians.

This time around, the day after the streets filled with crowds responding to Pahlavi’s call, vans of plainclothes guards and women in burqas appeared with loudspeakers warning anyone on the streets would be considered a terrorist. Then the killing started.

For now, these protests too may have been smothered, but many believe that this time it’s different. “Something has shifted fundamentally,” said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), the London-based think tank. “The mood has changed domestically, and there are cracks in the system we have never seen before.

“It’s premature to say the regime will collapse, but I do think some kind of change is inevitable.”

A voice message from a woman calling herself Fatima, who said her father is a high-level commander who beat her when she went out to protest, claimed that regime officials have suitcases of dollars and fake passports ready to flee.

The protests are not just over decades of repression by the clerical regime, particularly of women’s rights, but also economic collapse exacerbated by corruption and international isolation, affecting all those who are not part of the regime.

“I went to a top private school in Isfahan, and not a single one of my schoolfriends has jobs,” said Saba Latifi. “They just spend all day driving around the streets, or watching TV, very depressed.”

“The fear is gone,” said Omid Shams, an Iranian writer and human rights activist in exile in London. “Partly because of the 12-day war with Israel last June, when people saw the regime is not invincible, and partly because people have no hope. It’s either go to the streets and die or stay home and die slowly.”

“There is nothing else to lose,” posted a novelist on her Instagram feed before going out to protest, even though she was imprisoned during the last demonstrations.

Parasta said he is seeing the same thing. “I still have 40 patients we got out here to Germany in the last protests who I have operated on, and they want to go back, even though they would be detained at the airport. And the doctors on the ground I speak to say the wounded they treat want to go back.”

For now, the streets are almost empty, partly a break to regroup, Shams said, but also because of disappointment that Donald Trump’s promise last week that “help is coming” has not been followed through. Instead, Trump thanked the regime for not carrying out executions. “I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran,” he posted on Truth Social. “Thank you!” It is unclear where the number of 800 has come from.

Protesters are hoping this is a mere ruse by the mercurial US president. Shams said the uprising is unarmed, and few believe change can come without help from outside. “If it doesn’t come, I fear what will happen,” he added.

If there is change, it will come too late for Yasin Mirzaei, 28, who was home from college in Italy and preparing for an interview at the British embassy in Tehran, ready to begin a doctorate in structural engineering at Bristol University.

On January 8, the night before his appointment, he joined his friends in an anti-regime demonstration in Kermanshah, western Iran — his first ever protest, his uncle Bahman Mirzaei said. Security forces fired live ammunition into the crowd, killing at least five people, including Yasin. “They shot him in the head,” Mirzaei said from Turkey. “He died on the spot.

“Afterwards someone called me from Iran and said that before Yasin went out, he seemed to somehow know he might be killed,” Mirzaei added. “He said, ‘If they kill me, tell everyone I became a martyr in the path of freedom’.”

(Additional reporting by Fatemeh Jamalpour and Roxana Saberi)