Tehran, Jan 23 (.) Iran’s Supreme National Security Council recently instructed newspaper editors and online media managers to stop publishing independent reports on the protest deaths, and to not interview any bereaved families.
The directive, issued during a meeting with managers of domestic media outlets instructed them to explicitly use only figures released by the state, according to Iran International.
The measure is said to be aimed at preventing any broader scrutiny or disclosure regarding the scale of the killings carried out by security personnel, reportedly ordered directly by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had earlier vowed to crush the protests with all means available.
As per the report, the directive was delivered as some domestic media managers challenged the government’s line during the same session, pointing to internal information suggesting a death toll in the thousands and questioning instructions issued under President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Supreme National Security Council.
Participants told Iranian officials that there was a stark gap between the numbers provided by the state, and those being verified independently.
However, the state instructions were absolute, despite these objections, and ordered all media officials to ensure that state norms are strictly adhered to.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Security Council released official casualty figures for the first time for the peak days of the crackdown on January 8 and 9. It said 690 protesters were killed during those two days.
The same statement listed a total of 3,117 deaths, but classified 2,427 of them as “martyrs” drawn from “innocent people and guardians of order and security” — language typically used by the Islamic Republic to describe members of state institutions or those aligned with them.
The Martyrs Foundation echoed that breakdown, initially reporting 3,317 deaths before revising the figure down to 3,117 hours later. It maintained that security forces were responsible for killing only 690 protesters, while claiming the remaining deaths were caused by protesters themselves.
Earlier estimates of civilian casualties in Iran’s state-backed crackdown differ drastically from the state figures, with numbers just a week back going up from 10,000-12,000, while the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, alleged that this figure by now is as high as 20,000, citing reports from doctors inside the country.
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