Time magazine reported on Monday, January 12, that the number of protesters killed in Iran may have reached “thousands.” The report said there was no exact figure for the number of deaths and that the scale of the killings appeared to be beyond anything previously seen on the streets of Iran.
According to Time, an informal group of Iranian academics and experts abroad have estimated, based on reports from several Tehran hospitals, that the death toll from the protests may have reached “six thousand” by Saturday, January 10. This calculation, according to the publication, includes bodies directly transferred to morgues by government forces and does not include bodies being stored in hospitals.
A protester in the city of Shiraz, who managed to speak to TIME via Google Meet and Starlink satellite internet, called the protests this time “100 percent” different from previous ones, saying that in addition to the larger crowd, “the protesters this time are much more organized and much more persistent.” The protester, who used the name “Louis” in his interview with TIME for security reasons, added: “The police attacks are also much, much more violent.”
Organisations. According to Time, statistics provided by reputable human rights groups indicate that hundreds of people have been killed, but it should be noted that these organisations only register the bodies of protesters whose identities have been confirmed; a process that is extremely difficult and time-consuming, given the several-day shutdown of the internet, as well as mobile phones and even landlines in Iran.
After the report was published, Halil Neuer, executive director of the human rights organisation UN Watch, shared the Time article and called for an emergency UN meeting on Iran. He criticised the UN’s inaction, writing that no resolution has been issued, no investigation has been conducted, and no emergency meeting has been held regarding the Iranian protests.