21 January 2026 :
January 20, 2026 - IRAN. IHR Report on 24th day of protests
24 days since the start of the nationwide protests in Iran and thirteen days after the internet blackout, information and eyewitness accounts are revealing the scale of the large-scale killing of protesters by state forces.
An eyewitness who participated in the nationwide protests in Mashhad, and who has since left Iran, gave their account of the bloody crackdowns in the city.
Mehran, a 50-year-old Mashhad native, told IHR: “On 8 January, people began gathering from around six o’clock. Daneshjou Street, Haft Tir, Sayyad Shirazi, Vakilabad Boulevard and the Pirouzi Intersection were filled with crowds. Some protesters disabled traffic cameras and lit fires. Near the Haft Tir Basij base, security forces opened fire on protesters with live ammunition. People carried the wounded in their arms or on motorbikes. There was a clinic near the Basij base and even though the medical staff were scared, they accepted the injured.”
According to the eyewitness, plainclothes forces and special police units were the main perpetrators in suppressing protests in Mashhad. Protesters near the Haft Tir Basij base were hearing that the crackdown in areas such as Mellat Park and Shandiz had been even more severe and that protesters had been massacred. Yet, many young people were still willing to risk their lives and said: “We’re going to Mellat Park, even if we are killed.”
“The next morning, I went out onto the streets and you could still people’s blood on the pavements. The authorities had tried to erase the evidence of the crackdown, anti-government slogans on the walls had been painted over. But broken bus stops and signs of the previous night’s clashes were still visible,” the source added.
On the evening of 9 January, protests erupted again. “Large numbers of protesters had gathered. In Jalal Street in Mashhad, they fired so much tear gas that many protesters became seriously sick. I believe they also used chemical agents. The sound of gunfire wouldn’t stop. At Daneshamouz Street, protesters set fire to a Basij base. I saw with my own eyes a thin 16-year-old girl being shot and killed. On Vakilabad Boulevard towards Daneshamoiz Street, I also saw security forces firing pellet guns at protesters’ eyes,” the protester said.
The Mashhad protester confirmed that government forces raided the homes of people who had sheltered demonstrators, saying: “People opened their doors so protesters could take refuge and plainclothes agents identified their houses. I saw officers carrying pistols and G3 rifles violently storm homes. They beat protesters with batons, pulled their clothes over their heads and took them away.”
Describing the securitisation of Mashhad from 10 January onwards, he said: “A heavy security presence dominated the city. Security forces on motorbikes patrolled with terrifying noise to create fear. Checkpoints were set up across the city. Masked officers searched cars at gunpoint. Many areas of Mashhad witnessed massacres on 8 and 9 January. Tousi Boulevard, Fajr Bridge, Tabarsi, Ahmadabad and Chenaran, everywhere was covered in blood.”
Speaking about the high number of casualties, he added: “It's impossible to give an exact number for those killed. In my view, it was in the thousands. There were also many wounded. One of my relatives was hit by 103 pellet rounds. He stayed home because hospitals required national ID registration. A nurse came to his house and removed the pellets with tweezers, but several pellets are still lodged in his neck. Another friend went to the Mashhad morgue to look for a relative who had been killed. They only showed him images of the bodies on an iPad. When he went to collect the body, they told him he had to pay 150 million tomans for each bullet or if he couldn't afford it, he could register the deceased as a member of the Basij (IRGC). My friend refused and, after paying the sum, was able to receive his loved one's body.”
The nationwide protests, which began on 28 December 2025 in Tehran’s bazaar, quickly spread to other parts of Iran. Verified reports indicate that on 4 January, protests in Mashhad were also met with a bloody response and mass arrests in various parts of the city, including Ahmadabad.
https://iranhr.net/en/articles/8543/
