Merlyn Thomas,BBC CheckAnd
Shayan Sardarizadeh,BBC Check
Verified videos from Iran show bodies piled up in a hospital, snipers stationed on buildings and CCTV cameras destroyed, following the unprecedented crackdown on protests earlier this month.
BBC Verify has been tracking protests across Iran since they first erupted in late December, but a near-total internet shutdown imposed by authorities has made it extremely difficult to document the scale of the state’s deadly crackdown on protesters.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed the killing of nearly 6,000 people, including 5,633 protesters, since the unrest began in late December. It says it is also currently investigating another 17,000 reported deaths despite an internet shutdown after almost three weeks.
Another group, Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, warned that the final death toll could exceed 25,000 people.
Iranian authorities said last week that more than 3,100 people had been killed, but that the majority were members of security forces or bystanders attacked by “rioters.”
The latest videos from the country were reportedly filmed on January 8 and 9, when thousands of people took to the streets following a call for nationwide protests by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late Shah.
These are believed to be the deadliest nights for protesters so far and these newly verified videos show how Iranian security forces violently cracked down on protesters.
Several clips analyzed by BBC Verify and BBC Persian show bodies piled up in a morgue at Tehranpars hospital, east of Tehran. We verified the location of the hospital by matching its interior with other publicly available images and videos of the building, and counted at least 31 bodies in one video alone. Another clip shows seven body bags lying on the ground outside the hospital entrance.
In another video, hundreds of people demonstrate on a highway west of Tehran, before multiple gunshots are heard and people start screaming.
Protesters were also seen trying to evade Iran’s heavy surveillance infrastructure by disabling CCTV cameras. Footage we verified shows a person in the capital climbing a pole and hitting a surveillance camera several times in an attempt to disable it. A huge crowd of protesters can be seen on the field and heard cheering as the camera is damaged.
We tracked the spread of anti-government protests in 71 cities across Iran, although the actual number of areas where protests took place is likely much higher.
In the southeastern city of Kerman, video taken from the heights of a building shows several armed men in military uniforms walking down a road continuously firing their weapons, although it is not clear who they are shooting at. A small fire burns in the middle of the road while the sound of protesters chanting is heard in the background.
Snipers were also recorded on the roofs of buildings. In the northeastern city of Mashhad, verified video shows two men dressed in black on the roof of a building in broad daylight. A man stands next to a large loaner rifle against a wall and talks on the phone. The other man crouched on the ground smoking.
For most people, there has been a near-total internet outage since January 8, but some have managed to briefly access the Internet using methods such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet and virtual private networks (VPNs).
More videos are expected to emerge in the coming days as the country’s economy struggles during the power outage.
Additional reporting BBC Persian.
