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Turkiye Today – The death toll from protests in Iran that began on Dec. 28, 2025, has risen to 7,002, with tens of thousands detained, U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Thursday.

The demonstrations initially started at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, led by shopkeepers amid deepening economic hardship and the rapid depreciation of the national currency, before spreading across the country.

Protests intensified in Tehran on Jan. 8, prompting authorities to restrict internet access, and security forces intervened on Jan. 8–9 to suppress the unrest.

Updated figures on deaths and detentions

Although the protests have ended, HRANA, headquartered in the U.S. state of Virginia, said it continues to verify additional cases and update the number of deaths and detentions.

According to the group, 52,941 people were detained during unrest in various parts of the country, and 7,002 people, including 214 security personnel, lost their lives.

HRANA said 11,730 cases remain under review. The organization had previously reported the death toll at 6,984.

Conflicting official figures

On Jan. 21, Iran’s Martyrs and Veterans Affairs Foundation, citing the Forensic Medicine Organization, announced that 3,117 people, including security forces and civilians, were killed during the protests.

Of those, 2,427 were described as security personnel and civilians killed by what authorities called “armed terrorist groups,” while no details were provided regarding the remaining 690 individuals.

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The latest figures are according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The HRANA relies on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths.

Iran’s government offered its only death toll on January 21, saying 3,117 people were killed.

HT could not independently verify the death toll numbers.

The rise in the death toll comes as Iran tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program.

The Iran-US tensions and the Benjamin Netanyahu twist

“Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal, and they were hit. … That did not work well for them. Hopefully, this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.” Meanwhile, Netanyahu told reporters before boarding a plane to return to Israel that Trump believes that his terms and Iran’s “understanding that they made a mistake the last time when they did not reach an agreement, may lead them to agree to conditions that will enable a good agreement to be reached.”

On the other hand, Netanyahu said he “did not hide” his own “general scepticism” about any deal, and stressed that any agreement must include concessions about Iran’s ballistic missiles program and support for militant proxies, not just the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. He described talks with the US president as “excellent.”

Meanwhile, Iran at home faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of all dissent in the Islamic Republic. That rage may intensify in the coming days as families of the dead begin marking the traditional 40-day mourning for the loved ones.

Talks continue

Larijani told Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network that Iran did not receive any specific proposal from Washington in Oman, but acknowledged an “exchange of messages.”

Qatar has been a key negotiator with Iran in the past, with which it shares a massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. State-run Qatar News Agency reported that ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke with Trump about “the current situation in the region and international efforts aimed at de-escalation and strengthening regional security and peace,” without elaborating.

The US has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.

Already, US forces have shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a US-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Trump told the news website Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the region.

“We have an armada that is heading there, and another one might be going,” he said.

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NBC News – A fruit seller and father of two killed during his first protest. A biotechnology graduate with a passion for art who bled to death in her father’s arms. A distraught family ordered to pay morgue officials $7,000 for a loved one’s body unless they lie and say their relative died at the hands of anti-government rioters.

These are a tiny fraction of the thousands of Iranians killed or wounded when the government cracked down on protests a month ago. With the nation still reeling, details about victims are trickling out and the world is gradually getting a clearer picture of the violence used to suppress the nationwide demonstrations.

Most of the killing happened during a two-day period between the night of Jan. 8 and Jan. 10, with over 7,000 people killed across the country, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

“This was a very rapid 48-hour massacre. I can’t think of anything in Iran’s own history that’s comparable, unless I go back to the 18th century,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group.

The demonstrations, sparked in late December as the rial currency crashed and inflation soared, turned into one of the biggest challenges faced by the Islamic Republic in its 47-year history as thousands of people across the country, including members of the country’s many ethnic minority groups, took to the streets to demand an end to clerical rule.

Communicating with journalists can be very dangerous for protesters’ families, and Iran is in the middle of a communications blackout with severe restrictions on the internet and cellphone service. So to report on those killed by security forces, NBC News relied on sources outside Iran who were in touch with the families of victims inside the country.

These are the stories of four killed during January’s carnage.

Negin Ghadimi

Negin Ghadimi studied biotechnology, but her real passion was art. In a video posted on Instagram, 26-year old Ghadimi shows a sketch of a woman’s dress covered with mirrors that she has designed. She wanted people to see their own reflections, she said.

“My view of my future is very bright,” Ghadimi, a former competitive swimmer, says in a separate Instagram video.

She lived in the city of Sari in northern Iran and would sometimes visit family in Tehran, according to a relative who is not being identified for security reasons. “She was full of life, loved nature, loved art,” the relative said in a telephone interview.

On Jan. 9, Ghadimi’s family decided to attend a protest while on a visit to Tonekabon, a small city in northern Iran on the Caspian Sea.

“I told her, ‘Baba, dear — you stay. Don’t come. I’m going out,’” Ghadimi’s father says in an Instagram video of a commemoration ceremony for her, his voice cracking.

“She said, ‘No my dear, I’m coming to look out for you.’”

When Ghadimi and her family arrived at the protest, security forces began shooting tear gas at the crowd and the family was separated, her relative told NBC News. Again, Ghadimi’s father tried to get her to leave, the family member said.

Ghadimi and her father were holding hands as they walked with other protesters when security forces began shooting at an intersection. A bullet hit the side of Ghadimi’s body.

Ghadimi told her father she was burning, the source said.

Her father screamed for help and laid her on the ground, the family member added. Soon a crowd gathered and helped carry Ghadimi into a nearby house.

Ghadimi licked her lips over and over. Her shoes were covered in her own blood, according to the relative.

Nearby, the shooting continued unabated as Ghadimi’s father, who had been shot in the hand with pellets, begged for help to get her to a hospital, according to her relative.

After around 45 minutes, a woman driving a car past the house stopped and agreed to take a heavily bleeding Ghadimi to the hospital. The medical staff tried to revive her, but it was too late.

“She lost her life in my arms, but I couldn’t do anything for her,” her father says in the Instagram video of the commemoration ceremony.

On Ghadimi’s death certificate, a copy of which was seen by NBC News, her cause of death is listed as “Impact from a high speed projectile object to the body,” rather than being shot by a bullet which would ordinarily be noted.

“It’s ridiculous,” her relative said.

Ghadimi’s body was taken to Behesht-e Zahra, Iran’s largest cemetery, located about 5 miles south of Tehran’s southern suburbs, for burial. Nearby, crowds chanted anti-government slogans, her relative recounted.

Yasin Mirzaei Ghalazanjiri

A geophysics graduate student, Yasin Mirzaei Ghalazanjiri was studying in Italy when he decided to visit family in Kermanshah, a city in western Iran home to a large population of fellow ethnic Kurds, during his New Year’s university break. He joined friends and family at a large protest in Kermanshah on Jan. 8.

It did not seem dangerous at first, but that changed quickly. Ghalazanjiri was shot in the chest by a sniper bullet and died on the spot.

“When they shot Yasin, his family and friends were around him,” said a relative, who asked not to be identified because he was afraid Iranian security forces would harass or harm him outside the country or his family inside Iran.

“They wanted to take his body so it wouldn’t be grabbed by security forces. But at that same time, another one of our family members was shot in the face with pellets,” he added during a telephone interview.

The group decided to pull the wounded man to safety before going back for Ghalazanjiri’s body. By the time the gunfire had subsided, Ghalazanjiri had disappeared.

When family tried to find the body at the city morgue, they encountered rows and rows of unzipped body bags.

The security forces at the morgue gave the family a choice: either say that Ghalazanjiri was killed by “rioters” among the protesters or pay 700 million toman, approximately $7,000. They called it “haq-e tir,” or bullet price.

The family refused to accept the version of events pushed by the authorities and paid the money to get the body back. Even though the family paid, the security forces said they should keep quiet about the circumstances of his death or else they would rebury Ghalazanjiri in an undisclosed location.

A crowd showed up for Ghalazanjiri’s burial at a family plot in a rural area outside Kermanshah and chanted anti-government slogans despite the threats, according to his relative.

On Jan. 15, the rector of the University of Messina, where Ghalazanjiri studied, expressed her condolences at a gathering of students, and Ghalazanjiri’s picture was placed on an empty chair.

The entire family is heartbroken by the loss of a vibrant young man who had so much potential, his relative said.

“It’s not only Yasin. Anytime we see the protest videos, it makes us cry,” the relative said. “We’re human after all. We’re agonizing for everybody.”

Sadegh Ghodsi and Ilya Ghodsi

Sadegh Ghodsi, a 38-year-old Tehran fruit seller, was not politically active. But on Jan. 8, the father of two decided to attend a protest with his cousin’s son Ilya, 17, according to a source close to the family.

They were among other protesters in the Qaleh Hassan Khan neighborhood in western Tehran when security forces opened fire on the crowds, he said on condition of anonymity out of fear that Iranian security forces would harm him or his family.

Both were killed.

The family searched desperately for their bodies and eventually found them at the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center south of Tehran. Videos that have leaked out of Iran and were verified by NBC News show rows and rows of body bags inside and outside the facility as families try to identify their relatives.

When family members found the bodies of Sadegh and Ilya, the authorities would not allow them to be removed. They, like other families, were offered a choice: pay a bullet price of 800 million toman, or about $8,000, or sign a document stating the two were members of the Basij, a paramilitary force overseen by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who were killed by “terrorists.”

“They didn’t have the financial resources to pay. They didn’t have a choice, so they accepted,” the source close to the family said in a telephone interview.

“When the family received the bodies, there were so many other bodies they were only given half an hour in the mosque for a funeral service,” he added.

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Mission Network News – The official death toll from Iran’s protest crackdown is now over 7,000 people, according to new reports from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Witnesses inside the country suggest the real number could be significantly higher.

With executions, prison sentences, and businesses forcibly closed following the protests, the regime’s grip appears tighter than ever – even as nuclear talks and regional tensions dominate international headlines.

For Iranians at home and abroad, the loss is deeply personal.

Denise Godwin with International Media Ministries (IMM) says members of their Persian expatriate film crew are carrying the weight of it every day.

“The news I get directly from them and their outrage over the killings in Iran and the abuse and the persecution is just heartbreaking,” Godwin shares.

The Iranian expatriate community remains tightly connected to family and friends back home. Godwin says, “Many of them, of course, have fled because of either political persecution or religious persecution, and they can’t go back. They can’t check on their families other than through the media…. So it’s really an intense time for them as they hear of deaths, either of friends or family or acquaintances, or they just can’t communicate with someone back home.”

At the same time, IMM is preparing to release a Persian-language dramatization of Esther’s story from the Bible — a story about faith and courage in the face of a regime bent on destruction. The project was filmed with Iranian actors and crew last summer.

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ABC News – One month after Iran was rocked by the beginning of the deadliest crackdown in its modern history, the full toll of the regime’s response to nationwide protests is still coming into focus.

On Jan. 8 and 9, Iranian security forces launched what activists describe as the most brutal assault yet on citizens who had poured into streets across the country, chanting for regime change.

While international media coverage has gradually shifted toward renewed negotiations between the United States and the Islamic Republic over Tehran’s nuclear program, human rights groups and Iranians inside and outside the country warn that repression on the ground has intensified. They describe an atmosphere of fear, torture, and systemic violence ruling the country.

As of Monday, more than 6,400 protesters have been killed and over 51,500 arrested on charges linked to the demonstrations, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Over 11,000 more related deaths remain under review. ABC News cannot independently verify these numbers.

Farsi-language social media remains flooded with images of the dead, missing and detained. Videos show families grieving loved ones killed in the streets, while others are pleas from relatives searching for missing family members in morgues and prisons, or seeking legal support for those behind bars.

The volume of such social media posts has shown no sign of slowing.

200 students were killed

The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) published the names on Sunday of 200 students they said are confirmed killed during the protests.

“Each name carries a wish with it: I wish he were alive; I wish his school was still waiting for him,” CCITTA said in a statement on X, adding that “the empty benches are not just a sign of absence; they are a reminder of a crime that has reached the classroom.”

Mounting concerns over detainees

Over the weekend, in a post on X, the Hengaw human rights organization warned of widespread sexual violence during this wave of arrests, citing interviews with former detainees. Hengaw described the mental condition of those still in custody as “dire,” because of the torture during detention.

Among those arrested is Iranian journalist and activist Vida Rabbani, who was detained after signing a joint statement declaring the downfall of the Islamic Republic “inevitable.” Her husband says she has been tortured after her arrest.

“There were many obvious bruises on Vida’s body. She had been severely beaten,” Hamidreza Amiri wrote on Instagram this weekend after visiting her in prison.

“The artist girl had made a bracelet from a handful of her own hair,” he wrote. “The bracelet, next to the bruises on her hand, created a strange and deeply moving scene.”

Activists warn that if such abuse is inflicted on high-profile figures with media visibility, the treatment of ordinary protesters whose cases often go unreported may be far worse.

Waves of forced confessions

According to HRANA, at least 331 forced confessions related to the protests have been broadcast so far.

One recent case involves Mohammad Ali Saedinia, a prominent business owner who had supported the protests by closing all branches of his well-known confectionery chain nationwide and joining strike actions.

On Monday, state-affiliated Fars News published a scanned letter allegedly signed by Saedinia, calling his decision to shut down his stores in January a “mistake,” condemning Israel and the U.S., and apologizing to the Iranian people. Earlier this month, the judiciary’s spokesperson confirmed Saedinia’s arrest, and that his properties were ordered seized by the Iranian regime.

Arrests of reformist figures

The Iranian regime also arrested several prominent reformist figures on Monday, according to Fars News, after they allegedly criticized the authorities’ handling of the protests. They face charges including “attacking national unity” and “coordinating with enemy propaganda,” according to Fars News.

Speaking anonymously for security reasons, an Iranian analyst told ABC News on Monday that the arrests are “significant,” since the Trump administration might be weighing the possibility of engaging with some insiders of the Iranian government if the regime collapses.

The analyst added that the move could be hardliners aligned with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tightening their grip on power, given the uncertainty of the future of the ongoing negotiations with the U.S.

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Al Jazeera – Iranian authorities have shut down a number of privately owned businesses in the wake of deadly nationwide protests last month, even as the country’s cratering economy is hitting people and businesses hard and its government pursues a fraught diplomatic path with the United States.

Neither police nor judicial authorities have elaborated on why the businesses, most of them popular gathering spots in central and northern Tehran for young Iranians, have been shut down.

But many of the businesses had either observed strikes or expressed support online in the form of Instagram stories for the nationwide protests that started at the end of December.

Dozens of small and medium-sized businesses – including restaurants, cafes and roasteries, art galleries and ice cream shops – have been closed over recent days by a police authority tasked with overseeing public spaces.

Notices posted on the social media pages of the closed businesses said their content was found to be in “violation of the country’s rules and not adhering to police regulations”.

On Monday, the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, released an image of a confession letter allegedly signed by private businessman Mohammad Ali Saedinia.

The 81-year-old and his family managed a string of popular cafes and food brands with dozens of branches across the country.

The judiciary confirmed last week that he has been in prison in the aftermath of the protests, all of his businesses have been closed and all his assets confiscated to compensate for the damage done during the unrest.

“Unfortunately, in recent times due to the problems occurring in the markets and for the financing of the factory, my son had mistakenly announced the closure of our stores in lockstep with the Tehran bazaar,” the confession letter reads.

“He and myself have now fully understood our mistake and apologise to the dear people because if there is a problem, we must be vigilant so the enemies of Iran and Islam do not misuse it.”

The Iranian government said 3,117 people were killed during the unrest as it accused “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded by the United States and Israel of being behind the killings and the destruction of public property, including homes and businesses.

The United Nations and international human rights organisations said they have documented widespread use of deadly force against the protesters, including children. They have also raised alarms over raids on hospitals and arrests of medical personnel.

The latest figures by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency indicated 6,964 fatalities and 11,730 further cases under investigation. UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said more than 20,000 civilians may have been killed as information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.

Economy in turmoil

More than a month after the killings as concerns of war breaking out with the US linger, the Iranian economy is increasingly under strain.

The national currency, the rial, on Tuesday changed hands for about 1.62 million per US dollar, hovering close to an all-time low registered last month.

In Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, nearly all the shops are open, and some activity has returned out of necessity but not to the already deeply diminished levels seen before the protests.

“After weeks of very low sales, we’re now at maybe 60 percent compared to before, and that’s while we deal in equipment needed by different industries,” said a merchant at the bazaar who sells electric motors mostly imported from China.

“The transactions are done in cash on the day as much as possible. There’s been no interest to deal using cheques for even one to two months,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shops are also open around the nearby Jomhouri business area of downtown, where the protests were originally sparked by shopkeepers on December 28 against the freefall in the value of  the national currency. But there is still a heavy presence of security forces in the area, who at times set up checkpoints and patrol the streets.

A report on Monday by the reformist Shargh newspaper said many parents are questioning whether schools, which were shut down along with universities by the authorities during the unrest, are now safe places to send their children. Their indecision has left many classrooms nearly empty.

Celebrations to mark 1979 revolution planned

The theocratic establishment is planning events across the country on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, which ousted Iran’s last shah, US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

In a speech on Monday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Iranians to “make the enemy disappointed” by participating in state-organised rallies and demonstrations, which he said are “unparalleled” in the world.

President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials have also addressed state media to ask the people to join the rallies.

The confession letter signed by Saedinia also said the businessman and his son would participate in the rallies to demonstrate “hatred for criminal America”.

Earlier this week, Iranian authorities also arrested leading reformist figures who had called for changes in the aftermath of the government’s deadly protest crackdown. They were all accused of working “for the benefit” of Israel and the US and joined tens of thousands of people arrested since last month.

Iran and the US held indirect talks mediated by Oman on Friday but have continued to exchange threats as the US builds up its warships and air defences across the region.

Iranian security chief Ali Larijani met Oman’s leaders in Muscat on Tuesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived for a visit to the US to press Trump to back Israel’s narrative and demands on Iran on both the nuclear and ballistic missiles issues.

Israeli media have reported Trump asked for the meeting to be off-camera, which suggests there are disagreements as Washington, for the time being, pursues diplomacy with Tehran.

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France 24 – Iran stepped up its crackdown on Monday after recent protests, making more arrests while holding the door open to Washington for further nuclear negotiations.

The arrests – including that of Javad Emam, the spokesperson for the main reformist coalition – came after Iranian and US officials held talks in Oman that both sides described as positive.

On Saturday, Iran added more jail time to Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, and on Monday arrested Hossein Karoubi, the son of prominent dissident Mehdi Karoubi.

Weeks after repressing a wave of protests, one of the greatest challenges to the government since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has taken a two-track approach.

It is rounding up and jailing perceived critics, while at the same time pursuing a potential diplomatic opening with US President Donald Trump’s administration.

A spokesperson for the Reformist Front coalition told local media on Monday that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had arrested the group’s spokesman, Emam.

Emam was one of at least five Reformist Front figures to be detained, as were several activists and filmmakers who co-signed a protest statement.

Iran’s government has branded the protests “riots” fuelled by its arch-foes Israel and the United States.

‘Frustrate the enemy’

On Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the nation to show “resolve” against foreign pressure.

“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,” Khamenei said, adding: “Show it again and frustrate the enemy.”

Alongside its defiant pronouncements, Iran has signalled it could come to some kind of deal to dial back its nuclear programme to avoid further conflict with Washington.

The official IRNA news agency reported that Iranian atomic agency chief Mohammad Eslami had said Tehran could dilute its highly enriched uranium in return for sanctions relief.

“In response to a question about the possibility of diluting 60 per cent enriched uranium,” IRNA reported, Eslami “said this depends on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return”.

The report did not specify whether such an agreement would include only nuclear sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States, or all international economic measures targeting the Islamic Republic.

Diluting, or “downblending”, uranium means mixing it with other substances to reduce the enrichment level, so the final product does not exceed a given threshold – thus extending the amount of time it would take Iran to create sufficient nuclear material for a bomb.

Tehran adamantly insists it has never planned to build a nuclear weapon and that enrichment for civilian research and energy is its sovereign right, but the US, Israel and most Western capitals do not believe this.

At the talks in Oman last week, the US and Iran agreed to discuss Tehran’s nuclear programme, though Washington and Israel also want to put its ballistic missiles and support for regional militant groups on the agenda.

In separate calls with his Egyptian, Saudi and Turkish counterparts, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “described the talks as a good start while emphasising the need to dispel mistrust about the American side’s intentions and objectives”, state television reported.

Crackdown continues

While Trump had initially threatened to intervene over Iran’s repression of last month’s protests, since the latest talks began the United States has not given any sign that the crackdown on Tehran’s domestic critics is a major concern.

On Saturday, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of harming national security.

She was also given a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for “propaganda” against Iran’s Islamic system, her foundation said in a statement.

Already incarcerated for much of the past decade as a result of her campaigning against capital punishment and the mandatory dress code for women, she now faces up to 17 more years behind bars and 154 lashes.

The arrest of Reformist Front spokesman Emam followed those on Sunday of three other figures, including Azar Mansouri, who has led the coalition since 2023. Another reformist lawmaker was arrested on Monday.

The reformist camp largely backed incumbent President Masoud Pezeshkian in the 2024 presidential election.

Separately, Hossein Karoubi was also taken into custody. Karoubi’s father, Mehdi Karoubi, was a figure in the 2009 Green Movement protests and has been under house arrest more or less ever since.

The authorities in Iran have acknowledged that 3,117 people were killed during the protests, publishing a list of 2,986 names, most of whom they say were members of the security forces and innocent bystanders.

International organisations have put the toll far higher.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says it has verified 6,964 deaths, mostly protesters, and has another 11,730 cases under investigation.

It has also counted more than 51,000 arrests.

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Euro News – Iran’s judiciary said the list of 2,108 people pardoned or granted reduced sentences does not include “defendants and convicts from the recent riots”.

None of the people involved in recent nationwide protesters in Iran were included among the more than 2,100 people granted pardons or reduced sentences by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday, according to the judiciary.

The announcement comes ahead of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on Friday, an occasion that — along with other significant national dates — has been marked by the ayatollah approving similar pardons in past years.

“The leader of the Islamic revolution agreed to the request by the head of the judiciary to pardon or reduce or commute the sentences of 2,108 convicts,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

However, this does not include “the defendants and convicts from the recent riots,” it said, quoting the judiciary’s deputy chief Ali Mozaffari.

Protests against the cost of living broke out in Iran in late December before evolving into nationwide anti-government demonstrations that peaked on 8 and 9 January.

Authorities responded with a crackdown that killed thousands of people and saw tens of thousands more detained. It was the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tehran has said that at least 3,000 people died during the protests, including security forces and innocent bystanders, and attributed the violence to “terrorist acts,” but activists, insiders in Iran and international organisations have put the death toll far higher.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified 6,964 deaths, mostly protesters. The actual death toll — which remains difficult to determine due to a Tehran-instituted media blackout in the country — is feared to have surpassed 30,000, sources told Euronews.

Iranian security forces have launched a campaign to arrest figures within the country’s reformist movement, according to recent media reports in the country.

Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi on Saturday received another prison sentence of at least seven years, said a group supporting her.

The human rights activist’s sentence includes six years imprisonment for assembly and collusion against national security and up to one-and-a-half years for propaganda against the government.

Local media reports quoted officials in the reformist movement, which seeks to change Iran’s theocracy from inside, as saying at least four of their members had been arrested.

It signals a widening effort to silence anyone opposed to the bloody suppression of unrest by Iran’s theocracy as it faces new nuclear talks with the United States.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned he could launch an attack on the country if no deal is reached.

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Al Jazeera – Iranian authorities have arrested four people on charges of attempting to “disrupt the country’s political and social order” and working “for the benefit” of Israel and the United States during the antigovernment protests last month.

The arrests were made late on Sunday and early on Monday, and included prominent reformist politicians who have recently spoken critically about the theocratic establishment, according to Iranian media reports.

Those arrested were identified as Azar Mansouri, head of Iran’s Reformists Front, Mohsen Aminzadeh, a former diplomat, and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, a former parliamentarian.

Hojjat Kermani, the lawyer representing the three arrested people, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency that Javad Emam, a spokesman of the Reformists Front, was also taken from his home by security forces.

Iran’s judiciary claimed that the group was behind “organising and leading extensive activities aimed at disrupting the political and social situation” at a time when the country faced “military threats” from Israel and the US, according to the official Mizan news agency.

The individuals had done their utmost “to justify the actions of the terrorist foot soldiers on the streets”, it said.

Iran’s Reformist Front confirmed the arrests in a statement on X.

It said Mansouri was arrested from the “door of her home under a judicial order” by the intelligence forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

It added that the IRGC has also issued summons to other senior members, including its deputy chairman, Mohsen Armin, and secretary, Badralsadat Mofidi. Local media reported another reformist figure, Feizollah Arab Sorkhi, was also summoned.

Deadly crackdown

The arrests come amid anger in Iran over the deaths of thousands of Iranians during the January unrest. The protests began in the capital, Tehran, over a worsening economic crisis, but quickly escalated into a nationwide antigovernment movement.

Iranian authorities labelled the protesters as “terrorists” and blamed the “riots” on foreign interference from Israel and the US.

The government later said 3,117 people were killed during the unrest and rejected claims by the United Nations and international human rights organisations that state forces were behind the killings, most of which occurred on the nights of January 8 and 9.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has verified 6,961 deaths and is investigating 11,730 other cases. The organisation reports that at least 51,591 people have been arrested during and after the nationwide protests.

UN special rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, said more than 20,000 people may have been killed during the protests as information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.

Reacting to the protest killings in a statement in late January, the Reformist Front had said it grieved “the great catastrophe” alongside the Iranian people, and called for sweeping reforms and the formation of an independent fact-finding mission. It had also threatened to dissolve in case the “destructive methods of the past” persist.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, former leader of the Reformist Front, who has been under house arrest since the Green Movement of 2009, released his strongest statement to date last month, calling for a democratic transition away from the “Islamic Republic” and for holding a constitutional referendum.

“How many ways must people say that they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough. The game is over,” he wrote last month. At least four people, including a reformist figure and three activists, were arrested for helping draft and publish the statement.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the politicians arrested on Sunday and Monday face “serious allegations”.

He said Aminzadeh was a former deputy foreign minister during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who governed from 1997 to 2005, and that Asgharzadeh is a former lawmaker who was a student leader “involved in the takeover of the US embassy” in 1979.

“These figures have a background of political activism and imprisonment,” Asadi said. “So this is not the first time that they are facing such allegations. And they are going through a trajectory that could pave the way for imprisonment for them,” he said.

Analysts say the crackdown is a sign the Iranian government is trying to send a message to any other dissidents who challenge it.

“These are the people who have been calling for more political liberalisation. Some of them have called for the end of the Islamic Republic,” said Sina Azodi, the director of the Middle East Studies programme at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

“This tells me the Islamic Republic has decided to close any avenues for political dissent and, rather, to rule with an iron fist, through crackdowns and more fear-mongering among any political dissidents.”

Talks with US

The Iranian clampdown has also ratcheted up tensions with Washington.

When the protests first broke out, US President Donald Trump – who is seeking to curb Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes – threatened Tehran with new attacks if it used force against the protesters. Trump, who had ordered the US military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last June, also deployed a naval “armada” to the Gulf region.

The move prompted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to warn of a “regional war” if Iran is attacked, as well as a push by regional powers to ease the tensions.

The diplomacy resulted in Iran and the US holding indirect talks in Oman on Friday. President Masoud Pezeshkian described the discussions as “a step forward” in a social media post on Sunday and said his government favoured continued dialogue.

Another round of negotiations is scheduled for next week.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera that she does not expect the latest arrests in Iran to affect the ongoing nuclear negotiations.

“I am not sure that these arrests are going to be a specific focus of the talks as they continue,” she told Al Jazeera. However, she noted the arrests come amid the talks in Oman and a planned visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US capital.

Netanyahu will probably demand Iran halt all uranium enrichment, end its missile programme, and stop supporting regional allies, Bennis said.

“It’s essentially a call for Iranian surrender,” she said.

“So there’ll be a big question as to whether the US is going to go along with the Israeli position or maintain its own position, which historically has been slightly different than Israel’s, particularly on the question of nuclear enrichment.”

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Radio Free Europe – Iran has arrested several prominent reformist politicians as the authorities widen their crackdown on dissent following mass anti-government protests that posed one of the biggest threats to the clerical establishment in years.

Iranian media reported the arrests of Ebrahim Asqarzadeh, Mohsen Aminzadeh, and Azar Mansuri — members of the Reformists Front coalition — on February 8. Javad Emam, the spokesman for the coalition, was arrested on February 9.

The authorities used brute force to put down weekslong nationwide protests that erupted in late December, killing several thousand people, according to human rights groups. Since then, the authorities have launched a campaign of mass arrests and targeted prominent activists and political figures.

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