"I saw it with my own eyes. They were shooting straight into the ranks of protesters and people were falling where they were."
Omid's voice trembled as he spoke, fearing detection. Breaking the wall of silence between Iran and the rest of the world requires extraordinary courage, given the risk of reprisals from the authorities.
Omid, in his 40s and with his name changed for security reasons, has been taking part in demonstrations in recent days in a small town in southern Iran, protesting rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.
He claims that security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters, using Kalashnikov-type automatic weapons.
"We are fighting a barbaric regime with empty hands," he says.
Obscuration and silencing of information
The BBC reports that since then, authorities have cut off internet access, making reporting from Iran more difficult than ever. BBC Persian is officially banned from reporting from within the country.
One of the largest nationwide anti-government demonstrations took place on Thursday, the twelfth consecutive night of protests. Many of them appeared to have taken to the streets on Thursday and Friday, following calls from Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah, who was ousted from power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The next day, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that "the Islamic Republic will not retreat." According to witnesses, the bloodiest phase of the incidents occurred after this warning, as security forces and the Revolutionary Guard acted on his orders.
A young woman from Tehran described last Thursday as a “day of crisis.” “Even the most remote neighborhoods were full of protesters, places you wouldn't believe,” she said.
“But on Friday, the security forces just killed and killed. What I saw with my own eyes made me collapse psychologically. It was a bloody day.” According to her, after Friday’s killings, many were afraid to go outside and started shouting slogans from the alleys and inside their homes.
Tehran, he says, has become a battlefield, with protesters and security forces taking up positions in the streets. “In war, both sides have weapons. Here, people just scream and kill each other. It’s a one-sided war.”
Eyewitnesses in the city of Fardis, west of Tehran, reported that on Friday members of the Basij paramilitary force, which is part of the Revolutionary Guard, suddenly attacked protesters, after hours of no police presence on the streets.
These forces, in uniform and on motorbikes, reportedly fired live ammunition directly into the crowd. At the same time, unmarked vehicles entered the alleys, with their occupants firing at residents who were not taking part in the demonstrations. “In every alley, two or three people were killed,” said one witness.
Videos verified by BBC Persian's fact-checking team show police vehicles and government buildings burning in various areas. Most of the accounts and footage come from major cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Rasta, Mashhad and Shiraz, where there is greater internet access via the Starlink satellite network.
In contrast, from smaller cities, where the first deaths occurred, information is scarce.
Nurses and doctors who spoke to the BBC reported seeing dozens of dead and injured. They said many hospitals were overwhelmed and unable to treat the seriously injured, especially those with head and eye injuries. Some witnesses described bodies “piled on top of each other” and not being handed over to families.
Shocking videos posted on Telegram by the Vahid Online channel show dozens of bodies at the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center in Tehran, with relatives mourning or trying to identify the dead. In some footage, black body bags are seen both inside the building and on the street outside.
A cemetery worker in Mashhad said 180 to 200 bodies with severe head injuries were brought in before dawn on Friday and buried immediately. A source in Rust said 70 bodies of protesters were taken to a hospital morgue on Thursday, with security forces reportedly demanding “payment for bullets” before handing over the bodies to families.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday he was "shocked by reports of violence and excessive use of force by Iranian authorities against protesters, resulting in deaths and injuries."
"Regardless of the number of deaths, the use of lethal force by security forces is of serious concern," the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, told BBC Persian.
