On Sunday, January 18, the uprising of the Iranian people entered its twenty-second day. While, following the deadly crimes of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Iranian regime, in the killing of thousands of protesters, the regime’s security forces are trying to extinguish protests across society, the regime remains incapable of restoring international internet access. Meanwhile, global support for the Iranian people’s uprising continues.
Two horrifying reports from Iran
Amid the continuation of nationwide protests in Iran, two reports published by the international media outlets “The Sunday Times,” a British newspaper, and “Reuters,” a global news agency, reveal unprecedented dimensions of human casualties resulting from the Iranian regime’s suppression of the protests—figures that seriously call the regime’s official narratives into question.
Ali Khamenei Confirms Death of Thousands of People During Recent Protests#IranProtests #FreeIran2026 #IranRevolutionhttps://t.co/TvttMmK1wm
— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) January 17, 2026
In a report published on January 18, The Sunday Times quoted doctors and medical sources as saying that at least 16,500 Iranian protesters have been killed by the Iranian regime’s repressive forces during the recent protests, and that about 330,000 others have been injured. According to the report, the bulk of the killings occurred over two days referred to as the “complete massacre,” namely Thursday, January 8, and Friday, January 9. The Sunday Times described this event as the most brutal suppression by the clerical regime in its 47 years of existence. The report also refers to images of large numbers of slain protesters’ bodies at the Kahrizak forensic medicine center, indicating the scale of this crime.
These figures stand in stark contrast to the official statements of Iranian regime officials. Abbas Araghchi, the regime’s foreign minister, had earlier claimed in an interview with Fox News, a U.S. television network, that “only a few hundred people” had been killed in the protests. However, according to U.S. media reports, Ali Khamenei in his Saturday, January 17 speech effectively confirmed that several thousand people had been killed. The Sunday Times also notes that the Iranian regime has a long record of killing protesters and that Khamenei has repeatedly personally ordered bloody crackdowns on protests.
Meanwhile, Reuters also reported on Sunday, January 18, quoting “an Iranian official in the region,” that government authorities have confirmed the deaths of at least 5,000 people. The official, who requested anonymity, said that the most intense clashes and highest casualties occurred in Kurdish-populated areas of northwestern Iran. However, he described the protesters as terrorists and armed rioters and blamed them for the deaths of “innocent citizens,” without providing evidence for this claim.
At the same time as the publication of these reports, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, described Ali Khamenei as a sick person on Saturday and said that Iran has become the worst place in the world to live due to weak leadership. This collection of reports further exposes the deep gap between the Iranian regime’s official narratives and the on-the-ground realities of the protests.
