Scale of Iran's nationwide protests and bloody crackdown come into focus
even as internet is out
[January 24, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The bloodiest crackdown on dissent
since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution is slowly coming into focus,
despite authorities cutting off the Islamic Republic from the internet
and much of the wider world.
Cities and towns smell of smoke as fire-damaged mosques and government
offices line streets. Banks have been torched, their ATMs smashed.
Officials estimate the damage to be at least $125 million, according to
an Associated Press tally of reports by the state-run IRNA news agency
from over 20 cities.
The number of dead demonstrators reported by activists continues to
swell. Activists warn it shows Iran engaging in the same tactics it has
used for decades, but at an unprecedented scale — firing from rooftops
on demonstrators, shooting birdshot into crowds and sending
motorcycle-riding paramilitary Revolutionary Guard volunteers in to beat
and detain those who can’t escape.
“The vast majority of protesters were peaceful. The video footage shows
crowds of people — including children and families — chanting, dancing
around bonfires, marching on their streets,” said Raha Bahreini, of
Amnesty International. "The authorities have opened fire unlawfully.”
The killing of peaceful protesters — as well as the threat of mass
executions — have been a red line for military action for U.S. President
Donald Trump. An American aircraft carrier and warships are approaching
the Mideast, possibly allowing Trump to launch another attack on Iran
after bombing its nuclear enrichment sites last year. That risks
igniting a new Mideast war.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to detailed
questions from the AP regarding the suppression of the demonstrations.
Protests over rial spiral
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 at Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar,
initially over the collapse of Iran's currency, the rial, then spread
across the country.
Tensions exploded on Jan. 8, with demonstrations called for by Iran's
exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. Witnesses in Tehran told the AP
before authorities cut internet and phone communication that they saw
tens of thousands of demonstrators on the streets.
As communications failed, gunfire echoed through Tehran.
“Many witnesses said they had never seen such a large number of
protesters on the streets,” said Bahar Saba of Human Rights Watch.
“Iranian authorities have repeatedly shown they have no answers other
than bullets and brutal repression to people taking to the streets.”
Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, a deputy interior minister speaking on state
TV Wednesday, acknowledged the violence began in earnest on Jan. 8.
“More than 400 cities were involved," he said.
By Jan. 9, Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Yekta, previously identified
as leading plainclothes units of the force, went on Iranian state TV and
warned “mothers and fathers” to keep their children home.
“Tonight you all must be vigilant. Tonight is the night for keeping
mosques, all bases everywhere filled with ‘Hezbollahi,’” Yekta said,
using a word for “followers of God” that carries the connotation of
fervent supporters of Iran's theocracy.
Already weakened by the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in June,
the authorities decided to fully employ violence to end the
demonstrations, experts said.
“I think the regime viewed it as this was a moment of existential threat
and that they could either allow it to play out and allow the protests
to build and allow foreign powers to increase their rhetoric and
increase their demands on Iran,” said Afshon Ostovar, an expert on the
Revolutionary Guard and professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterrey, California.
"Or they could turn out the lights, kill as many people as necessary ...
and hope they could get away with it. And I think that’s what they
ultimately did.”
Basij key in disrupting protests
In Iran, one of the main ways its theocracy can squash demonstrations is
through the Basij, the Guard's volunteer arm.
Mosques in Iran include facilities for the Basij. Guard Gen. Heydar Baba
Ahmadi was quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency in 2024 as
estimating “79% of Basij resistance bases are located in mosques and 5%
in other holy places.”
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In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a
masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza
Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026.
(UGC via AP)
Iranian state media repeatedly has aired images of mosques damaged
in the protests without exploring their links to the Basij.
“Most neighborhood Basij bases are co-located with mosques and most
neighborhood Basij leaders are associated with the mosque
leadership," Ostovar said, adding that demonstrators “going after
regime targets” associated with repression would have considered
them “a legitimate part of it.”
Videos show Basij holding long guns, batons and pellet guns.
Anti-riot police can be seen wearing helmets and body armor,
carrying assault rifles and submachine guns.
The videos show police firing shotguns into crowds, something
authorities deny despite corpses showing wounds consistent with
metal birdshot. Scores have reportedly suffered blinding eye wounds
from birdshot — something seen in the protests around the 2022 death
of Mahsa Amini.
Iran's semiofficial ILNA news agency reported that Tehran's Farabi
Eye Hospital, the premiere clinic for eye injuries, called in “all
current and retired doctors” to help those injured.
We “received accounts that the security forces were just firing
relentlessly at protesters,” said Bahreini of Amnesty International.
"They’re not just targeting one or two people to create a climate of
terror for people to disperse ... but just relentlessly firing at
thousands of protesters and chasing after them, even as they were
fleeing so that more people were just collapsing to the ground with
severe gunshot wounds.”
Casualties grow as crackdown intensifies
For two weeks, Iran offered no overall casualty figures. Then on
Wednesday, the government said 3,117 people were killed, including
2,427 civilians and security forces. That left another 690 dead that
Pourjamshidian identified as “terrorists.”
That conflicts with figures from the U.S.-based Human Rights
Activists News Agency, which put the death toll on Saturday at
5,137, based on activists inside Iran verifying fatalities against
public records and witness statements. It said 4,834 were
demonstrators, 208 were government-affiliated personnel, 54 were
children and 41 were civilians not participating in protests.
Death tolls in Iran have long been inflated or deflated for
political reasons. But the fact that Iran's theocracy offered any
death toll — and gave a number beyond any other political unrest to
strike the country in the modern era — underlines the scale of what
happened.
It also provides a justification for the ongoing mass arrest
campaign and internet shutdown. State media report dozens to
hundreds of people detained daily.
Pourjamshidian also gave an extensive list of vandalism from the
protests and crackdown, including 750 banks, 414 government
buildings, 600 ATMs and hundreds of vehicles that sustained damage.
Meanwhile, uncertainty looms for Iran's theocracy over what Trump
may or may not do.
Traditionally, Iranians hold memorial services for their late loved
ones 40 days after their deaths — meaning the country could see
renewed demonstrations around Feb. 17. Online videos from Behesht-e
Zahra, the massive cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran, show
mourners chanting: “Death to Khamenei!”
Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP show large
numbers of cars daily at Behesht-e Zahra’s southern reaches, where
those killed in the demonstrations are being buried.
Elaheh Mohammadi, a journalist at Tehran's pro-reform newspaper Ham
Mihan, recently noted it had been shut by authorities. She said
journalists were working on stories about Behesht-e Zahra they
weren't able to publish.
“We send out a message to let people know we’re still alive,”
Mohammadi wrote online. “The city smells of death.”
“Hard days have passed and everyone is stunned; a whole country is
in mourning, a whole country is holding back tears, a whole country
has a lump in its throat."
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