Art student Arash was walking home through the streets of Tehran when a bullet ended his life. He didn't shout slogans, join the protesters, or raise his fist.
A friend, who described the moment by phone from the Iranian capital, told Reuters that Arash immediately fell, lifeless, to the sidewalk. He was 22 years old.
The friend, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear for his own safety, said they had stopped on the sidewalk to watch a protest at nearby Vanak Square when security forces in black uniforms arrived and began shooting randomly in the direction of the demonstrators.
Arash's death on January 8 is an example of what witnesses say has become a reality of the country's recent anti-government protests - bystanders who had nothing to do with the unrest have been targeted, or killed while trying to escape the chaos.
Reuters was unable to independently verify this account or similar witness accounts of deaths during the state's crackdown on the unrest.
However, accounts from families and witnesses suggest that the indiscriminate force used by security forces to quell the unrest killed many civilians who did not participate, leaving relatives touring hospitals, morgues, and detention centers in search of answers.
Officials in Iran could not be reached for comment on the killings described in this story, as authorities began blocking phone lines and internet connections on January 8, as protests spread across the country. Since January 13, Iranians have been able to make outgoing international calls, but calls to the country remain blocked.
Numerous testimonies from Iran, including those of people who have since left the country, allege that security forces used live ammunition indiscriminately, turning the streets, particularly on January 8 and 9, into what witnesses compared to war zones.
Authorities blamed the unrest and deaths on “terrorists and rioters” who they said were supported by exiled opponents and foreign enemies, the United States and Israel. State television broadcast footage of burned police and government buildings, mosques and smashed banks, which it said were attacked by “terrorists and rioters.”
The US-based human rights organization HRANA said it has so far verified 4.519 deaths related to the unrest, including 4.251 protesters, 197 members of the security forces, 35 people under the age of 18, and 38 bystanders who it claims were neither protesters nor members of the security forces.
FOOD has 9.049 more deaths to verify. An Iranian official told Reuters that the confirmed death toll as of Sunday was more than 5.000, including 500 members of the security forces.
The protests began on December 28 as modest demonstrations in Tehran's Grand Bazaar over economic hardship and quickly spread across the country.
Within days, demonstrators were demanding an end to the cleric's rule, and state television showed footage of what it said were "rioters" burning images of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Amnesty International said in a report that it documented security forces deployed on streets, rooftops - including the roofs of apartment buildings, mosques and police stations - repeatedly firing rifles and shotguns loaded with metal pellets, often targeting the heads and torsos of unarmed people.
Numerous testimonies from Iran, including those of people who have since left the country, allege that security forces indiscriminately used live ammunition, turning the streets - particularly on January 8 and 9 - into what witnesses compared to war zones.
Among the victims was Fariba, a 16-year-old girl described by her mother, Manijeh, as curious and full of life. On the night she went to a nearby square with her mother just to watch, security forces on motorcycles attacked the protesters.
Manijeh held her daughter's hand tightly and sought cover behind a parked car amid the gunfire. In the panic that followed, mother and daughter became separated. "I searched for her street by street, screaming her name," Manijeh recalled, sobbing into the phone. "She wasn't there."
That night, the family visited police stations and hospitals. Fariba was found two days later, in a black body bag, at the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center in southern Tehran - shot in the heart.
Officials told the family that she was killed by "terrorists."
“No,” her mother said. “I was there that night. The security forces opened fire on people. They killed my child.”
Footage on social media showed families searching for their loved ones among hundreds of body bags in morgues and at the Kahrizak Center. Reuters confirmed the location of the footage was the Kahrizak Center, although the identities of the people and the date the footage was taken could not be confirmed.
A doctor who left Iran on January 14 said hospitals were overwhelmed with gunshot wounds. In Karaj, west of Tehran, a resident described how security forces used automatic rifles against protesters and bystanders on January 8.
Similar testimonies came from the western city of Kermanshah, where the Revolutionary Guards used armored vehicles and tanks to suppress demonstrations.
In Isfahan, the brother of a 43-year-old man said he held his brother's blood-soaked body after security forces shot him. "His only 'sin' was that he gave shelter to teenage protesters who were fleeing in his shop," Masoud, 38, told Reuters by telephone.
Like other Iranians interviewed for this story, Massoud asked that his full name not be published for fear of reprisals.
In another case, the family of Nastaran, a 28-year-old primary school teacher in Tehran, searched for days after she visited a relative on January 9 and never returned.
Her body was found in a warehouse outside Tehran. Her father claims she was killed by security forces. Authorities allowed the body to be recovered only on the condition that it be buried in the family's hometown in central Iran and pressured the family to blame "terrorists" for the death - a claim the relatives rejected, he said.
Another family in the northern city of Rasht said security forces raided their apartment after spotting their 33-year-old daughter Sepideh watching the protests from her window.
"They broke down the door, cursed and shouted. They took her in. We don't know where she is," said her brother Morteza.
“My sister’s two young children are crying for her; her husband has been threatened with arrest if he continues to search for her.”
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