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Iran Protest Death Toll Could Top 30k, According to Local Health Officials
- globalnode 9mo ago[flagged]
- lr4444lr 9mo agoOn what basis do you call it "slop"? I would agree that it's not much relevant to HN, but it seems to report that the number is at odds with most other figures.
- AnimalMuppet 9mo agoThe bar for submitting something to HN is quite low. (Just make an account. I think that's it - I don't think you need any particular karma level.) So, yes, you can get "slop" here - off topic, shilling, trolling, and just generally low-quality stuff. And lots of off topic. And I generally oppose off topic stuff! But this story has kind of died out in the mainstream press, and I think it's a really important story. (But then, I suppose everybody who posts off topic stuff thinks that theirs is a really important story...)
- thomassmith65 9mo agoWithout details to explain what aspects of the article are objectionable, this comment just leaves the original poster feeling bad, and other HN readers confused.
- inshard 9mo agoVery tragic. May the souls that gave their lives for freedom live in the memory of the people of Iran as a blessing.
- afroboy 9mo ago[flagged]
- curiousObject 9mo agoThe simple absence of on the ground reports from a variety of independent sources tells me that these numbers should not be simply ignored. If there’s nothing happening, then the obvious way for the authorities to prove that is to let observers in, and let independent information out. They do not do this, so I will take these reports of deaths more seriously.
- JohnnyLarue 9mo agoThey shouldn't be ignored, but they also should be taken with a massive grain of salt. This reporting has all the hallmarks of the US State Department manufacturing consent for yet another war.
- pydry 9mo agoAfter WMDs i honestly thought america learned to be a bit more skeptical of poorly sourced "pretext for war" stories which emerge in the context of a military build up. E.g. like reading the sentence: >TIME has been unable to independently verify these figures. And going "hmmm".
- behnamoh 9mo agoYou can already see them in the videos raiding hospitals to "finish off" the wounded... Or you can watch videos of hundreds of bodies in plastic bags if you need further proof that this massacre is actually happening on that place on the earth.
- GordonS 9mo agoThat doesn't prove who went around murdering police officers and random people, and destroying hospitals, banks, police stations and ambulances - it only proves it happened at all.
- behnamoh 9mo agoIt does prove who did it; when you see police officers, Hamas mercenaries, and IRGC forces shooting at people using machine guns, and then demand "bullet price" from the families of the dead before they return the corpses of their loved ones...
- MPSimmons 9mo agoHow many on the government side, I wonder. There are wars that haven't killed so many people. This seems like another revolution.
- Bender 9mo agoI guess this will be a difficult question to ask. I have no doubt the numbers are high but there is something odd about the videos that leak out. The sound of the guns are enhanced for psychological effect? and in the cases where a gunner on a truck is moving down a road purportedly mowing people down there is no blood on the road where the protestors had been standing, no bodies and we never see the people being shot. It's not like I want to see people being shot but I've also seen a lot of fake mass shooting videos in the past decade. There's no shortage of real uncensored footage of killing in Ukraine. Why is everything censored for Iran?
- blogabegonija 9mo ago[dead]
- GaggiX 9mo agoI don't like promoting gore websites but in watchpeopledie and search Iran you can count yourself at least hundreds of body from all the videos, often in a single location, usually the aftermath.
- Bender 9mo agoAlong that line 4chan is full of pictures and videos of all the MN shooting incidents and even memes already but not a single Iranian video.
- aaomidi 9mo agoBecause the internet is out so it’s extremely difficult to get the footage out. There is footage slowly trickling out.
- almogo 9mo agoUkraine was historically more or less a free-for-all as far as front-line cinema is concerned. I have to imagine the situation in Iran is more difficult for a few reasons: 1. Gen AI is much better today than it was in 2022. So, both sides can generate much more realistic fakes. 2. There was an article here on HN about Iran's internet slowly coming back on a whitelist basis. We're probably getting more pro-Government videos now than we were at the beginning of the current events. 3. Further crackdown on Starlink minimizes authentic leaks (I only heard about this and have no way to confirm how impactful this really is) I'll add my own anecdotal agreement with your suspicion though - the footage coming out of Iran has been, for me, more difficult than other conflicts to piece together into a cohesive story. Western countries are claiming 30k+ dead, and while I don't necessarily reject the claim, the situation on the ground is still very blurry to me.
- ogogmad 9mo agoThat's way higher than I thought. Is there any evidence? Dresden was 25,000, and the V2 and V1 campaigns had less numbers. So this is high even for an aerial bombing campaign. [edit] I don't get why I'm getting downvoted. Are people making assumptions because I mentioned Dresden? Get a hold of yourself.
- npn 9mo ago[flagged]
- ogogmad 9mo ago> You can't ask that here. Why?
- jltsiren 9mo agoAerial bombardments typically target areas with ~0.01 people/square meter, and those people are often in hardened shelters. A protest may have 1–4 people/square meter out in the open. Attacks targeting the latter cause orders of magnitude more casualties for the same amount of firepower. And the crowd itself can be deadly if it gets too dense, due to panic or otherwise. For example, there have been at least two crowd collapse events with >1000 deaths in the Mecca pilgrimage.
- verdura_low 9mo agoTo add to this, Dresden was just one city. We’re talking about nationwide protests in a country of 90 million people.
- iammjm 9mo agoI think it's just a stupid comparison. Aerial bombing campaign on a single city 80 years ago vs government coming down on protesters distributed in over 100 cities was the best reference you could find to doubt these numbers?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- firejake308 9mo ago> As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more. The 30,000 number comes from the Ministry of Health. It seems the UN number also aligns with the new 30,000 number. This is much worse than the 3,000 that was reported earlier. But it also seems like the crackdown is over now, and we're still just counting deaths from Jan 8 and 9. I compare this to the recent protests in Bangladesh, where Sheikh Hasina ordered the military to shoot the protesters and the military refused. The difference between these two countries is proof that people do have the ability to disobey orders from authoritarian leaders, and that decision can have a huge impact.
- aaomidi 9mo agoMain difference is that a good chunk do the crackdown was done by bringing in katib hezbollah from surrounding countries.
- geremiiah 9mo ago> The 30,000 number comes from the Ministry of Health. Then why does the article say that they couldn't independently verify the number and that the only source is a German-Iranian eye doctor?
- tremon 9mo agoHave you given some thought to that question yourself, and what conclusion did you reach?
- reliabilityguy 9mo agoThe difference is that IR didn’t use Artesh (it’s military) to suppress the protests. They bused in its proxy militias from Iraq, who doesn’t care much who to shoot.
- swat535 9mo agoI'm Iranian (diaspora from Canada), there are multiple branches of security forces in the regime: 1. The army (air, land, sea, etc) 2. IRGC (revolutionary guards) 3. Basij (a specialized militia within IRCG, often with their own chain of command) 4. Police (for civilian monitoring and control) 5. Guidance Patrol (specialized "morality" police for enforcing Islamic law) 6. Other (undercover, highly trained agents both inside and outside of country) The reason why it's setup up this way, is to prevent mutiny within the regime. After the revolution, they realized that they have to setup a system like this to protect themselves, if one of these is compromised. Currently, Iran is in the process of preparing for a long war with Israel, United States (and their allies in the region). Khamenei has been moved to a secure location and is no longer appearing for "Friday prayers". He will likely attempt to flee should the regime falls. I hope that he is captured alive and is forced to stand trial. He has to answer for every single person he has harmed, both in Iran and elsewhere.
- tobrien6 9mo agoThe Islamic clampdown on the Iranian people has gone on for too long. The younger generation is willing to die for their freedom. The internet is locked down, satellite comms jammed with Chinese tech. The streets smell of blood. Police and imported Arab thugs open fire into crowds of protestors. Hospitals are systematically raided to finish off the wounded. It will be his greatest act as president if Trump sends real assistance, as the Iranian people are begging him. It will save countless lives. Either way, in the end, Persia will rise again, the lion will raise its head, the brutality of Islamic oppression will be cast off, and the world will come to know the true spirit of these people.
- 31337Logic 9mo agoI hope you're right.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- CrzyLngPwd 9mo ago[flagged]
- bothemer 9mo agoOn January 8, 2026, the digital sky went dark. I thought we are pushing the boundaries of the tech world and have super powers when needed. I was so wrong. This is Iran's third total internet shutdown, but the methodology has evolved into something far more surgical. They didn't just block IP addresses; they severed BGP routes, killed mobile data, and effectively jammed Starlink signals into a dead zone thanks to Russian imports. When the signal itself is murdered, your Tor bridges and VPNs become expensive paperweights. As builders, we are being out-engineered. We have grown complacent, assuming the "always-on" cloud is a fundamental constant of the universe. But if your software requires a remote handshake to function, it is a liability, not a tool, in a crisis zone. Every application built with heavy reliance on centralized APIs vaporizes the moment the backbone is cut. We must stop designing for the "connected" illusion and start building for the darkness. This is my plea to the HN community: stop treating "offline-first" as a niche feature and start treating it as a human right. We need robust, decentralized mesh networks that bypass state-controlled gateways entirely. We need isolated documentation tools and local-first databases that can sync via Bluetooth or physical handoffs. Build for the 212 regions that went dark last year so that the next time a state pulls the plug, the people aren't left helpless. a throwaway account for obvious reasons (they have also Chinese tech to track); make your code work when the world goes quiet.
- radicalethics 9mo agoI feel like the period between 2019 through to today (2019-2026), human death tolls have paralleled prior twentieth century death tolls. Numbers that sound like tens of thousands, and even millions if you count Ukraine/Russia.
- chrisjj 9mo agoBy now we should be able to determine the number by satellite imagery.
- jeswin 9mo agoWhat explains the silence from activists outside Iran on this particular issue? I see relatively limited coverage on global media. Iranians seem to be fighting this alone, and dying by the thousands. Perhaps we know, but the reasons will be unpopular.
- kelipso 9mo agoProbably the activists are hesitant because the US is rearing to start a war with Iran (that will certainly kill way more civilians) and they don’t want to contribute to that decision.
- wahnfrieden 9mo agoUS activists against IDF wanted US to stop arming and funding and enabling genocide directly. Many IDF soldiers are also from the US or go back and forth. US isn’t arming or funding or enabling Iran directly, so calls for US action would mean call to war, which US leadership has already been signaling. Maybe you think US should go to war. Regardless that’s the biggest difference. There are also frankly many who are confused about Iran - sympathizing with Iran leadership as enemies of IDF and not understanding who they are and what they do. Lack of video going around doesn’t help.
- 31337Logic 9mo agoReligion and virtue signaling.
- behnamoh 9mo agoBecause Persians are fighting islam (they're burning down mosques). and the islamic regime was a sponsor of previous pro-palestine movements. leftists don't find this an appealing mix. they'd rather blame Israel for everything, but here we see Iranians siding with the Israelis because they've seen what islam does to their country.
- Calavar 9mo agoThis is a straw man in my opinion. But regardless of that, your theory doesn't explain why conservative media isn't really covering this either - The Iran protests haven't exactly been front page material on Fox News or OAN or Breitbart
- mc32 9mo ago[flagged]
- baby 9mo agoWhy US campus? Everyone can protest about something, did you do it?
- watwut 9mo agoInteresting bad faith attempt. Really, it is mysterious why would American students protest against something America actively does and supports, something their schools support rather then ... something another country not actively supported by America does.
- Noaidi 9mo agoWhy would a US college student care about a revolution where the US is not involved in providing the weapons that are doing the killing? You think that what is happening in Iran, and the genocide by the united states and Israel of the Palestinians is the same?
- SonOfKyuss 9mo agoWhy would we protest? Our government isn’t supporting this action and in fact is considering direct intervention
- lingrush4 9mo agoBecause innocent people are dying and western governments are capable of intervening but choose not to. Your line of argument is an interesting one though. You're tacitly admitting that western protesters don't actually care about innocent Palestinians. They're just using Palestine as an excuse to undermine their governments.
- krapp 9mo agoA lot of American support for the Palestinian movement is a proxy for leftist anti-imperialist and anti-government sentiment, yes. Many Americans had never even heard of Palestinians or Gaza or any of it until it went viral on social media. If the US weren't actively involved in aiding and abetting Israel's genocide of Palestinians, awareness and protest would probably be at about the level it that was for China's persecution of Uyghurs. Not nothing, but also not particularly radical.
- doughnutstracks 9mo agoDespite feeling deeply for Iranians living under this oppressive regime and in the aftermath of the protests, I can’t help but think about how current media coverage of Iran compares to the way major outlets amplified questionable claims in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003.
- frellus 9mo agoCan we stop calling this a "protest" and start calling it a revolutionary uprising? Because that's what it is seems it is to me.
- orwin 9mo agoWhat's the difference? they protested the government, got shot at. Then after a few month of getting killed while protesting, they chose to retaliate. Is it when the protesters retaliate that you call a protest an uprising?
- frellus 9mo agoCan we stop calling it a "protest" and call it what it is: a revolutionary uprising. Labeling it a "protest" is equating it to what a bunch of clustered people holding stupid billboards and yelling into microphones. This isn't that.
- orwin 9mo agoIt started like that though. It was a protest, then government military start killing people, again, and again, and once deadly violence is on the board, protester takes arms and shoot too. Then bystanders get killed, protesters get killed, some government military police get killed, and here if the government still has a bit of morality left, you get Euromaidan. If its the military, you get what happened in Nepal. However, if none of that happen, you have a civil war.
- tokai 9mo agoLets not all change our word use because it doesn't align with your narrow definition of protest.
- OutOfHere 9mo agoIf Trump continues to get his way, this will be the condition in the US.
- baxtr 9mo agoInterestingly, someone like pg who is so outspoken about other things going on in the Middle East hasn’t said a word about the atrocities. How come I wonder?
- krembo 9mo ago[flagged]
- ss1996 9mo agoWho's pg?
- SeanAnderson 9mo agoPaul Graham - founder of YCombinator
- JumpinJack_Cash 9mo agoSomebody should traffic an 8bag of coke into the U.S. with the name of the Ayatollah on the bag. Then I'm sure the full might and wrath of the U.S. military would be unleashed upon him and his regime...
- bijant 9mo ago[flagged]
- metalman 9mo agozero links, article states "unable to verify claims" standard regime change fake hype news from the psychos running the genocide
- throwaway290 9mo agoI am curious why Iran protest news remain on front page but US protest news are immediately killed.
- 93po 9mo agois isnt? there's a thread here that currently has 789 comments that isn't killed, and the previous two ICE deaths had comment threads even longer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46745047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46745047
- throwaway290 9mo agoI saw another one that was killed and there was nothing else as far as I could see, Thanks for the link
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- 2Gkashmiri 9mo agoSomeone from kashmir. Can You IMAGINE 30k deaths? A genocide happened in gaza and it took months, i think a year to reach 30k target and you are saying iran judt straight up killed 30k civilians in 1-2 days?
- t-3 9mo agoThe Gaza numbers are confirmed deaths, with bodies and identities and all, it's not counting people they can't identify or who are missing and presumed dead (buried under rubble and the like). The confirmed death tolls are considered to be a vast undercount of actual total deaths. This 30k number is much less rigorous and we have no way to know it's accuracy.
- mhb 9mo agoThe Gaza numbers that most Western media uncritically report are nonsense spewed out by Hamas whose agenda is aided by making that number as high as possible.
- t-3 9mo agoThat's not true. Many independent estimates have been made. Israel doesn't release any numbers at all, which they could easily do if they wanted to claim that casualty numbers were falsified.
- mhb 9mo agoI don't see what Israel could possibly provide which the people who mischaracterize war as "genocide" would find compelling. Are they going to produce examples of claimed casualties who actually turn out to be alive or imaginary? Well - surprise - they've done that.
- t-3 9mo agoIf the war is indeed mischaracterized, then Israel sharing figures would provide an alternative source to the "Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry" for those who haven't already decided who's correct or don't trust those numbers. If Israel doesn't care to provide any information, then they are tacitly agreeing that the "Hamas" numbers are correct. That's just common sense politics.
- _DeadFred_ 9mo agoQueue Hacker News deflecting/minimizing the situation in Iran and instead talking about the US/Israel. It sucks that no one has morals or consistant stances anymore. Just political positions to push specific agendas. 12 instances of Israel already on a thread about 30 THOUSAND HUMAN BEINGS murdered in Iran.