By Kayhan Life and Kayhan London Staff
After three weeks of nationwide demonstrations and what human rights groups and the international media termed the 21st century’s bloodiest crackdown on a protest movement, Iran’s authorities sought to project an image of stability, even as life for citizens remained anything but normal, with a nationwide internet shutdown and severe communications restrictions very much in force.
The protests, known by supporters as the National Uprising 404, began on Dec. 28 when merchants in several Iranian cities closed their shops. They quickly spread across Iran. By the third week, following armed suppression by the authorities, large parts of the country remained under heavy security, as if under undeclared martial law.
The Islamic Republic’s response, particularly on the evenings of Jan. 8 and Jan. 9, led to the brutal killing of many thousands of unarmed civilian protesters..Citing confidential data compiled by doctors inside Iran, the British weekly newspaper The Sunday Times reportedthat the death toll from the January crackdown had reached approximately 16,500. The same report estimated that between 330,000 and 360,000 people had been injured during the protests.
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According to The Sunday Times, government forces fired live ammunition at demonstrators, including the use of military-grade weapons and snipers. Most of the victims were said to have been under the age of 30.
The newspaper also reported that members of the Basij militia and security forces removed bodies from streets after their repressive operations ended, transferring them to other cities for burial in an apparent effort to erase evidence of mass killings. In some cases, families were reportedly required to pay large sums to retrieve the bodies of their relatives. This practice appeared to be part of a systematic attempt to conceal the accurate scale of the violence.
The report added that preliminary estimates suggested that more than 8,000 protesters sustained partial or complete blindness after being struck in the face or eyes by pellet guns or live rounds.
Other accounts pointed to bodies being removed from hospitals and buried in secret. An unverified report circulated by labor activists claimed that unidentified bodies were being transferred to the Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery in Karaj, west of Tehran, following the Jan. 8–9 crackdown.
According to that account, cemetery workers refused orders for mass burials and instead documented the bodies, photographing faces in groups of ten so families might later identify their relatives.
In a statement issued last week, the editorial board of the London-based television network Iran International said that at least 12,000 people were killed, mainly during the nights of Jan. 8 and Jan. 9. The channel described the events as the largest massacre in Iran’s contemporary history and added: “This killing will not be buried in silence.”
CBS News also cited data ata from inside Iran, whereby between 12,000 and 20,000 protesters had been killed since the uprising began. Despite the scale of the bloodshed, protesters continued to demonstrate in cities across the country.
On Jan. 17, 2026, the Open Data Center of Iran reported that a comparative analysis of the deadliest widespread protests worldwide over the past two decades showed that more than half of the victims were killed in Iran. Even using the lower estimate of 12,000 deaths, the group said, the January 2026 protests represented the most severe repression of demonstrators in the 21st century.
Internet access remained largely cut off as the protests entered a fourth week. NetBlocks said in its latest assessment that Iran’s nationwide internet shutdown had been ongoing for 10 days and that there had been brief, limited improvements in access for some users or regions.
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State-affiliated media reported that authorities planned to gradually restore access to domestic messaging platforms through Iran’s so-called national internet. Still, that access to the global internet would remain restricted.
Meanwhile, after days of nationwide school closures, the Education Ministry announced that all schools at every level would reopen on Jan. 18. In some provinces, due to weather conditions, classes would be held remotely, and secondary school examinations would proceed as scheduled, with postponed exams to be rescheduled later.
Universities were also expected to reopen, even as hundreds, if not thousands,s of students across the country had been killed and many others injured or detained.
In a notice, the education office of Sharif University of Technology, formerly known as Aryamehr University, said the final exams scheduled initially for Jan. 22 and Jan. 23 had been postponed to Feb. 5 and Feb. 6, respectively. In-person final exams would run from Jan. 24 through Feb. 6, and the next academic term would begin on Feb. 16, with minor schedule changes.
Similar notices addressed the reopening of universities and student dormitories, some of which had been closed or subjected to evening curfews during the previous three weeks.
State television also reported that, starting Jan. 19, lower-income households would be eligible to use a new electronic ration-card system that provides a monthly credit of 1 million tomans per family member at designated stores.
The head of Iran’s Administrative and Employment Affairs Organization said that registration for a program to recruit 500 young managers would be extended, citing nearly two weeks of internet disruption. The entrance examination was expected to take place in February.
As part of what critics described as an organized campaign to project a return to normality, members of parliament and local councils resumed routine work. They spoke to state media about meetings and legislative decisions. Government outlets also emphasized weather updates, soccer matches, and election registration deadlines, while advancing official narratives about the protests and the unprecedented killings.
Human rights activists, both inside and outside Iran, said they continued to use every available communication channel to document the crackdown, in an effort to prevent the facts from being obscured by state narratives and to lay the groundwork for future accountability.
[To see the original Kayhan London article in Persian, please click here.]
