Times (UK): Mullahs kill over 16,000, Wound over 300,000

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A complete communications and internet shutdown for the past ten days has left tens of thousands of Iranians with no idea if their loved ones are alive or dead as the regime has tried to stifle protests with what one doctor has called “genocide under cover of digital darkness”.

Yesterday, for the first time, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, admitted that “several thousands” have been killed since the protests began 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 new 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 utter 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 movie 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 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 that enables people to access the internet via terminals, bypassing traditional internet infrastructure. Starlink terminals have been smuggled into the country and have been the only way to communicate since 8pm on January 8 when the internet was turned off. Activists have taken about 50,000-60,000 terminals into Iran, 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 Sunday Times was also able to reach a number of people who had fled Iran. One person, from Mashhad, said: “Tell the whole world that on Friday they sprayed everyone with gunfire. The IRGC forces were calmly trying to aim for people’s heads.”

Another from Karam said: “Snipers on rooftops were shooting people in the back of the head. We were walking when suddenly several people next to us would collapse to the ground, covered in blood. When we tried to go toward them to carry the bodies away, they opened fire on us.”

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

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