The death toll in Iran’s protests rises as families learn of loved ones killed by regime forces

The last time Ottawa resident Mahnoosh Naseri spoke to his father, he had decided to take to the streets of Tehran to protest the Iranian regime.

It was Jan. 7 and Iranians fed up with corruption, economic mismanagement and the oppressive religious laws of the regime were rallying like never before.

Two days later, his father left his house to join the protesters and never returned home. It took his family four days to find him. He was shot dead.

“He was no longer concerned about his safety. What he cared about was the future of the children of Iran,” Naseri told Global News in an interview.

Nearly a month after Iranians mounted a major challenge to the century-old Islamic State, the shocking death toll is becoming increasingly clear.

The protests began in late December and escalated on Jan. 8, when Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the ousted Shah of Iran, called for mass protests.

Millions marched in major cities, assured by US President Donald Trump, who had vowed that if Iran kills the protesters, “it will save them.”

The protest was the largest since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and fighters loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responded with predictable violence. Activists say tens of thousands may have been killed.

To cover up the massacre, the government cut off internet access, but as the bodies piled up, families like Naseri’s were finding out just how bad it was.

“This has affected a lot of people in the community,” said Ali Ehsassi, an Iranian-Canadian and Member of Parliament for the Toronto riding of Willowdale.

Ehsassi said he has been hearing from members of the community whose friends and relatives have been arrested or killed, and Jan. 8 and 9 were “particularly bloody.”

Although he didn’t know the Canadian government’s estimates, federal statistics say it ranks as one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history.

“I have no doubt that the death toll is very high, even by the level of the Iranian regime,” said the Member of Parliament in an interview.

In recent interviews, Global News spoke with Iranian-Canadians about the fate of those close to them who participated in the anti-government events of January 8 and 9.

“Slowly we learned the truth, and the truth was that a lot of people were killed,” said Azam Jangravi, a technology industry expert in Toronto.

Among the victims were 10 family members, Jangravi said, including one who was shot in the chest during a protest in Iran’s third-largest city, Esfahan.

The relative did not die at first but he was afraid to seek medical help because the security forces were going around the hospitals arresting the protesters.

After hiding in the house for two days, she died from her injuries, said Jangravi, who fled Iran after being convicted of showing her hair in public.

Another Iranian-Canadian, Pieman Azimi, said his nephew, a 20-year-old mechanic, was shot dead during the protest.

His family searched police stations and hospitals all day until they found him in the sea of ​​bodies, said Azimi, who lives in Ottawa.

Another Ottawa resident described the shooting incident of his friend, who survived being shot in the waist. Later, a friend told him how the pressure tactics had grown.

“The first two days, they were shooting paintballs,” Nona Dourandish said. “Then they decided to bring in military power and their special units.”

Authorities used drones to monitor the city, and when a crowd gathered to chant anti-government slogans, gunmen quickly arrived on the scene, he said, relaying a friend’s account.

“He said they were actually shooting people in the face, in the chest, so that they wouldn’t stand up. So they wouldn’t survive,” said Dourandish.

Naseri was close to his father, Hossein. “I can’t believe my father is gone,” she said. What was hard to believe was that he was among the many killed that day.

When Naseri was growing up in Tehran, she said she was often arrested for violating the regime’s strict dress code for women.

Her transgressions included not covering all her hair with a scarf and wearing shirts and pants that were considered too short or too tight, she said.

After a brutal government crackdown on women’s rights advocates in 2022, she joined her brother in Ottawa in September 2023.

A retired accountant from Tehran, 73, his father visited him in Ottawa last summer. He stayed in the capital for three months, attending his wedding and his brother’s graduation ceremony.

“I am very happy that I had the opportunity to show him some cities in Canada. He loved the nature here, the museums and the freedom,” said Naseri.

Although he did not like the Islamist government, Hossein had previously refused to participate in protests, fearing that it might disturb his two children.

But early last month, Naseri spoke to him on WhatsApp, and he had decided it was time to go out and support the protests.

“He told me, ‘I know you’re safe. You’re here. There’s no danger to you two. And right now I feel free to go and like others, ask for what we want,'” she said.

Hossein left home around 7pm on Jan. 9, he said.

Videos and eyewitness testimony collected by Amnesty International show that, that night, security forces positioned themselves on the roof and opened fire.

The “deadly attacks” were carried out mainly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian police, the human rights group said.

Thousands died, making last month “the deadliest period of repression by Iranian authorities in decades of Amnesty’s research,” according to the group.

Naseri started to worry when he heard about his father. He sent a message to a friend who had access to the Internet. A week later, his aunt called.

The family searched for the bodies until they found Hossein. He was shot in a large vein in his leg, his daughter said.

Contacting his family has been a challenge, amid fears that international calls are being monitored. Naseri knows very little about what happened, but he believes that his father could have been saved if he had reached the hospital.

He blames the Revolutionary Guard, whose mission is to protect the Islamic government from both internal and external threats. “The IRGC has a long history of killing protesters.”

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an anti-government terrorist group, announced Hossein’s death, calling him one of the “martyrs of the country’s heroic uprising.”

Canada joined Australia and the European Union on Jan. 9 in condemning “the killing of protesters, the use of violence, arbitrary arrests, and the Iranian regime’s intimidation tactics against its own people.”

But Deputy Conservative MP leader Melissa Lantsman said the federal government should do more than issue statements.

“Canada must take advantage of the government’s weaknesses,” he said in a Global News statement that called on the government to establish a registry for those involved in foreign interference.

He also urged Ottawa to deport members of the Iranian regime who have come to Canada, and to “work with allies to keep information flowing freely to the brave people of Iran.”

“Anything would be a step too far.”

Liberal MP Ehasassi said the government is working on a joint response with partners, and that Canada has already listed the IRGC as a terrorist group.

But Ehsassi said Canada is “far ahead” of other countries in taking action against Iran, including banning senior members of the regime from the country.

Last week, the European Union followed suit, punishing the Revolutionary Guard, saying “Repression will not go unanswered.”

“Our officials in different departments are communicating, deciding what we can do,” said Ehsassi. “Obviously, I would like to see us do a lot more. I think the Iranian-Canadian community would like to see that,” he said.

“And I’m very hopeful that there will be a series of steps.”

The US has been moving military equipment to the Middle East, and on Monday, Trump warned Iran of “bad things,” but has so far refrained from attacking and Khamanei said a US strike would trigger a regional war.

Naseri thinks the era of Iran ruled by fanatical mullahs is over. “This demonstration shows that the people of Iran no longer accept this regime.”

“They don’t want to.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews