Iran, January 8–9

In late December 2025, Iran's rial collapsed to historic lows, losing more than 40% of its value in weeks. The economic crisis priced ordinary goods — bread, medicine, fuel — beyond the reach of millions of people.

Protests erupted across more than sixty cities. They were not over abstract politics. They were over survival. By the first week of January 2026, demonstrators filled the streets of Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Rasht, and dozens of other cities across the country.

On the evening of January 8, 2026, the Iranian government ordered a near-total telecommunications blackout. Internet access was cut. Mobile networks were throttled to unusable speeds.

The shutdown was applied precisely over the hours and geographic areas where security forces were being deployed. This was not an administrative or technical decision. It was a deliberate act to ensure that what happened next could not be filmed, reported, or counted.

Security forces deployed on January 8 and 9 included units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Basij paramilitary volunteers, FARAJA (Iran's national police force), and plainclothes agents.

Witnesses, survivors, and independent human rights investigators documented the use of live ammunition, birdshot, and rubber bullets fired directly at crowds. Snipers were reported on rooftops in multiple cities, firing from elevated positions into protesters below — tactics consistent with those documented in the November 2019 and September 2022 crackdowns.

In the hours after the shootings, security forces raided hospitals across multiple cities. Their purpose was to detain wounded protesters before they could receive treatment or speak to journalists.

Medical staff reported being ordered not to document gunshot injuries or record them as such in official files. Patients in critical condition were removed from wards. Human rights organizations have documented these raids as a deliberate effort to suppress both the casualty count and the testimony of survivors — extending the blackout's work even after the shooting stopped.

No one knows exactly how many people were killed on January 8–9, 2026. That uncertainty is not a failure of investigation. The telecommunications blackout was specifically designed to make counting impossible.

The following estimates come from independent organizations working from survivor testimony, hospital records smuggled out of Iran, and satellite imagery analysis. The government of Iran has released no figures.

Beginning in March 2026, the Islamic Republic launched a sustained campaign of mass executions targeting people detained during or in the weeks after the January protests. Executions were carried out in prisons across Iran, often with little or no advance notice to families.

Amnesty International has documented and verified multiple confirmed cases connected to the January protests. The following individuals are among those confirmed executed: