Headline Roundup • January 26th, 2026
Reports on Iranian Protest Death Toll Vary From 5,000 to 36,000
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Since Iranian protests began in late December, estimates of the death toll have varied widely across media outlets and human-rights groups.
Highest Estimates: New York Post (Lean Right bias) cited a report from Iran International, which estimated over 36,500 Iranians had been killed across 400 cities in protest crackdowns between Jan. 8 and Jan. 9. This number comes from a review of newly obtained classified documents, field reports and accounts from the ground, according to Iran International's Editorial Board. The Post also said "the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' own records allegedly acknowledge" the 36,000 number over those two days, which includes over 2,500 people were killed in Rasht and at least 1,800 in Mashhad.
Time Magazine (Lean Left) also reported "as many as 30,304 people could've been killed" between Jan. 8 and Jan. 9, citing Iran's Ministry of Health. It noted the figure was "far beyond tallies being compiled by activists" but that it "aligns with a count gathered by physicians and first responders." It wrote "the only parallel offered by online databases occurred in the Holocaust" when Nazi death squads executed 33,000 Ukrainian Jews by gunshot on Sep. 29 and Sep. 30, 1941.
Lower Estimates: USA Today (Lean Left) and Fox News (Right) shared reports from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which estimates the death toll reached 5,848 by Jan. 25. According to HRANA, 5,520 of these were protestors; 77 were children under 18; 209 were government-affiliated forces, and 42 were non-protestors or civilians. Fox News noted the number of deaths under investigation is 17,091, while USA Today said another 9,787 deaths are "under investigation." Associated Press (Left) said Iranian authorities have offered only one official count: 3,117.
Iranian Response: BBC (Center) wrote, "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly acknowledged several thousand people have been killed but blamed the US, Israel and those he described as 'seditionists'". Meanwhile, Fox News quoted an Iranian journalist who said the Iranian regime has "issued shoot-to-kill orders to the IRGC, the Basij and the riot police, authorizing direct fire."
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Featured Coverage of this Story
The pictures, which are too graphic to show without blurring, reveal the bloodied, swollen and bruised faces of at least 326 victims - including 18 women. The images, displayed in a south Tehran mortuary, are one of the only ways families have been able to identify their dead loved ones.
Thousands have been killed in the ongoing protests in Iran, prompted by record inflation in December and targeting the religious government in place since 1979.
Getty Images
More than 36,500 Iranians were allegedly killed during a brutal, two-day crackdown against anti-regime protesters, the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic, according to a new report.
