Number of Reported Dead in Iran Soars After Three Weeks of Protest, but Little Appetite Emerging To Take Out the Islamic Regime

With more than 30,000 reportedly dead in just two days of protests and the conditions in Iran that sparked them virtually unchanged, the Islamic regime appears poised to maintain its grip on power as international leaders express little appetite to force change any time soon. The quickly escalating number of dead resulting from the worst two days of the three-week uprising — January 8 and 9 — comes from within Iran itself. Two Iranian Health Ministry sources told Time magazine that the Iranian government estimates as many as 30,000 were killed by regime forces during the unrest, well above what the Iranian government is saying publicly. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, which monitors death and injury tolls, confirms that the numbers are quickly rising. The agency says it has validated 5,459 deaths and is looking into an additional 17,031 unreported deaths tied to the violent January 9 suppression of protesters and an ongoing crackdown since then. Nearly 41,000 more people, including 325 children, were arrested during the weeks of unrest. The New York Times reports that the massive leap in the death toll now being confirmed was the result of a direct order by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to shoot to kill. A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry has called the death numbers “fake,” claiming the estimates a fabrication made up by foreign adversaries who wished to kill Iranians themselves.“A Hitler-style BIG LIE: isn’t this the number they planned to kill in the streets of Iran?! They failed, though, and now they’re trying to FAKE it in the media. Truly vicious!” spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Sunday.On Friday, Iran rejected a UN’s Human Rights Council vote to approve a harshly worded resolution and an extension of a two-year fact-finding mission about the state’s actions against its citizens. Iran’s representatives insist that 3,117 people, mostly military and police officers as well as some civilians, perished as a result of a “direct terrorist operation” by the United States and Israel. Seven nations, China, Cuba, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, India and Indonesia, sided with Iran. Another 14 abstained.Even as the Iranians deny it is taking punitive action, Iran’s chief justice, Gholam‑Hossein Mohseni‑Ejei, has called for fast-tracking trials to expedite executions against protesters. “Justice means that we try and punish the criminal who took up arms and killed people or committed arson, destruction, and slaughter without the slightest leniency and leniency, and at the same time, we do not violate specific standards and principles in the trial and punishment of this criminal.Despite mass condemnations over the slaughter, the international community has not expressed an inclination to take more forceful action against the Islamic regime even as the Iranian government announced it is extending by three months a ban on the use of its low-altitude airspace by drones and private aircraft. With the military rebuilding its missile count, the decision suggests Iran could be anticipating a potential aerial fight. The head of Israel’s civil aviation authority also informed foreign airlines on Sunday evening that next weekend may be “the beginning of a more sensitive period on the security level,” potentially resulting in the closure of Israeli airspace.President Trump boasted Thursday about a “big flotilla” mobilizing in the direction of Iran, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln. But he has expressed reluctance to take any military measures against the regime. “I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely,” the president said.The president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told “Fox News Sunday” that with the internet blackout now lifted, the true numbers bear out that Iran conducted “a state-sponsored massacre.” But, he said, the president is going to take “measured steps” in his response in terms of protecting American bases and Israel. “We have engaged with our allies and engaged with the region, and we’re putting assets in the region for him to make the absolute right decision, but at the end of the day, what is not going to change is the corruption, is the malpractice that has been the Iranian regime,” he said. “As we see the Iranian economy continue to tank, I do not think the situation is going to get any better for the regime.”As the international community declines to take more forceful action, the conditions that triggered the brief uprising — a nearly useless currency worsened by massive inflation, corruption and mismanagement, and water and energy shortages — show no signs of abating. Yet, the powerful regime maintains its grip, even as it eases the internet blackout that prolongs and deepens the turmoil faced by average Iranians.“Past blackouts in 2019 and 2022 cost hundreds of millions of dollars per day by independent estimates,” a British-based cyberespionage investigator and Iranian activist, Nariman Gharib, tells The New York Sun. “The hardest hit are small businesses and the young, educated freelancers who drive much of the non-oil economy. That deepens unemployment and desperation, especially among the very people leading the protests. The regime leans ever harder on oil revenue to fund its security apparatus, but that just fuels inflation and shortages, sparking larger demonstrations and even harsher responses. It’s a downward spiral the regime itself keeps tightening.”

Number of Reported Dead in Iran Soars After Three Weeks of Protest, but Little Appetite Emerging To Take Out the Islamic Regime

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