Reports have emerged from eyewitnesses in Iran claiming that teenagers have been taken into custody, and from authorities forcing the families of murdered protesters to pay as much as 10 billion rials to get their bodies back.
The reports came as the Iranian government claimed it had successfully quelled weeks of unrest engulfing the country.
Beginning on December 28, protests erupted amid deep public anger over political repression, economic hardship and state violence, before rapidly expanding nationwide.
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Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during a protest against the collapse of the currency’s value, in Tehran, Iran, on January 8, 2026. (Stringer/WANA/Reuters)
“The incitement is now over,” Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Movahedi said, according to the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency.
“And we must, as always, be grateful to the people who extinguished this uprising by being on the ground in a timely manner,” he added. the New York Times.
The regime’s claims emerged on day 25 of the protests: the number of confirmed fatalities reached 4,902 and the number of deaths still under assessment stands at 9,387.
The total number of arrests has risen to 26,541 Press agency for human rights activists (HRANA) said.
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Protesters burn a poster depicting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of anti-government protests in Iran, in Holon, Israel, Wednesday, January 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) said it also received information indicating that some families were forced to pay amounts of up to 10 billion rials to retrieve the bodies of their relatives.
In many cases, funeral ceremonies were held under heavy security control in the birthplaces of the dead.
Some families were reportedly subjected to threats and pressure to falsely attribute responsibility for the killings to the protesters.
KHRN further said that two protesters, including a 16-year-old, said they were sexually assaulted by Iranian security forces who detained them in Kermanshah, according to reports.
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Iranian security forces reportedly killed prisoners and burned bodies during protests. Clashes in Kermanshah, Rasht and Mashhad continued despite government claims. (NCRI)
Meanwhile, NCRI’s Ali Safavi said eyewitnesses reported that “several young women and men were forced to undress so that the military could see if they had bullet wounds.”
“Barbarity was committed against people who were detained. When they were killed, their bodies were burned,” he added.
Safavi also said clashes continued in several cities on Tuesday evening, including “Kermanshah where protesters and IRGC armed units fought in parts of the city.”
“The same thing happened in Rasht and Mashhad, where the people and the regime will not return to the status quo even though the uprisings have subsided. This is because of the blood of thousands of martyrs on their hands.”
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“The regime is still in power and will not give up brutal and bloody oppression, so there is no path to a velvet revolution in Iran.”
“The shoes and sneakers you see along the sidewalks remind us of the 30,000 MEK members and Iranian prisoners who were hanged during the 1988 massacre based on a fatwa by Khomeini,” Safavi added.
