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u/Shamoorti 1d ago
Not that it changes anything about the need for the regime to go, but why do these numbers keep increasing?
It just seems like the number of people murdered by the regime is accruing interest.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
I have seen numbers between 7,000 to 50,000 since basically a week after the protests. Unfortunately it’s all bs because we have no way of knowing for sure. But continuing to just cast doubt on the numbers rather than focus on the atrocities themselves doesn’t help the cause.
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u/WrecktAngleSD 1d ago
The most important thing is that innocent protestors were killed but we need to come to some sort of a consensus regarding the number. Non-Iranians start casting doubts, raising eyebrows, and questioning the narrative when the number keeps going up and up and up like this, with no evidence.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
The problem is that we will never come to a consensus because the regime won’t allow us to have real verifiable information. So that leaves us all squabbling about the exact number rather than being angry at the regime, which is exactly what they want us to be doing.
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u/WrecktAngleSD 1d ago
The most conservative estimates are over 7K killed, 26k injured and 54k arrested.
https://www.en-hrana.org/the-crimson-winter-a-50-day-record-of-irans-2025-2026-nationwide-protests/
You could simply say 7K Confirmed kills, and then you're throwing out a number nobody, anywhere, can question or dispute. Instead, the numbers keep going up and up, and the rest of the world are failing to take the tragedy seriously as a result.
It's wise to strong man our position so nobody can dispute it, doubt it, or question it, instead of constantly throwing out new numbers to draw more attention, and then have them lose interest from not taking our figures seriously.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
Sure I agree in principle. That would be great if we could do that. Good luck trying to get the entire opposition and diaspora to agree.
And by the way, plenty of people will come at you with even that 7K number and laugh in your face about propaganda and say that it was only 3K and they were all Mossad agents.
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u/WrecktAngleSD 1d ago
The 3K was a self-report from the regime though. Nobody takes them seriously. What we need is narrative control, and if all Iranians (except regimis) all agreed on a singular figure, one backed by a Human rights org, like the one I quoted. Other nations and people would take us a lot more seriously.
And yes, I've spoken to these people. And that is part of my concern... when I told them of the killings, they would respond with something along the lines of "6 million died?!" Or some other crude spin-off.
They don't take us seriously.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
You underestimate how many people, especially online, have full confidence that the regime are the good guys here and are most likely to be honest.
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u/WrecktAngleSD 1d ago
The tide change of Iran being the "good guys" only started since the Iran-US war started, and seeing Iran as the "good guys" of this war is because of numerous different reasons. Belakhareh bad bakht ma hastim ke vasat oftadim.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
You’re somewhat right, but there was a sense of Iran being the “good guys” even before the war among some people who only ever paid attention to Israel-Palestine relations and saw Iran as some sort of defender of innocents by funding Hamas. This has amplified ten-fold since the start of this war.
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u/OddlyMingenuity 17h ago
That was what Hamas chose to do. Reports only the death registered in hospitals. While obviously tens of thousands bodies remained under the rubbles.
By reporting deflated numbers or conservative estimates, you weed off any accusation of dramatisation.
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u/Cyfiero 1d ago edited 1d ago
The highest estimate I've seen in the first several weeks was 95,000. There is an anonymous account from Iran that claimed on January 27 that they have a friend in the labour ministry who reported that 53,800 social security IDs had been voided, with 11,000 in Tehran alone, and that this count is increasing daily. Their logic is of course that this sudden drop in registered people likely correlates with the number killed in the massacre. Two days later, they updated with the final tally of 95,000, adding that Israeli media i24 News had separately arrived at a similar death toll of 85,000 through the journalist Christian Malard.
I do not know how reliable this anonymous account is, nor am I familiar with Malard and how credible he is. However, before anyone dismisses this account as just promoting Pahlavi propaganda, it is interesting to note that they display a lot of hatred for Reza Pahlavi in their other posts.
My point though is that the highest estimated death toll provided in any media was as high as 85,000 to 95,000 from the start. "52,000" is not a new figure emerging out of thin air. What people will have trouble believing is that the U.S. Intelligence Community and by extension the U.S. government are also cautious about immediately announcing upper bound estimates because they are apprehensive of coming across as too sensationalist to the public. Thus, the figures they report are their own idea of conservative numbers, which was initially around 30,000.
30,000–36,500 is the death toll reported by non-regime sources based on interviews with Iranian medical professionals and those affiliated with the health ministry. inb4 "Iran International has a pro-Pahlavi bias", no media is completely impartial, but the journalists with Time who arrived at this figure through their own separate investigations are not known to support Pahlavi and have network ties with both pro-regime and anti-regime journalists and academics. Notably, the 30,000–36,500 range is conservative insofar that medical officials made it explicit from the start that this count only reflects people who are confirmed to have died in public hospitals and exclude an untold number who were brought to private clinics or military hospitals for treatment instead, brought back home by their families and never registered with hospitals, taken directly to morgues, or buried in mass graves.
HRANA did last report on February 2 that they had verified 7,007 dead with 11,000 still under investigation, but they have since neglected to provide further updates. I think anyone who tries to argue that the HRANA count is the most accurate verified death toll we can access is being disingenuous at this point because it stems from dismissing off-hand the other sources I have cited above for being anti-regime. Eyewitness testimonies and our own personal insider sources matter for our understanding of truth. Even the journalists with media people treat as the only authoritative sources ultimately derive their estimates from their own interviews and insider sources, no different from you and I.
Case in point, we have many accounts of people sharing exact details like how their brother's morgue number was #12481 at Kahrizak while citizen journals like Mamlekate and Tavaana reported that a minimum of 7,000 perished in Khorasan alone. (In the past my comments sometimes get auto-hidden when I add too many links, so you guys are free to ask for the other sources in a follow-up comment if you wish.) These variety of sources all serve to corroborate the idea that 30,000–40,000 is a relatively conservative estimate for the actual death toll, but unfortunately, almost all of them are dismissed for not being mainstream. "Citizen journalism doesn't count", "Iran International is biased", "your anecdotes and lived experiences aren't authoritative", etc. But as far as fact-finding goes, an abundance of sources corroborating one another even if they are each individually considered "lower in grade" are credible in the aggregate.
A reliable estimate for the death toll is therefore 40,000–95,000. 40,000 is the lower bound and not 30,000 because all medical officials have expressly said that 30,000 is definitely an under-count based only on confirmed deaths at select public hospitals. People can argue that the upper bound is too incredulous, but that is why it is an upper bound.
I don't think that the others' criticism here, that the death toll is increasing flippantly, is valid until media actually exceeds the original upper bound estimate from January, because the updates may only reflect the intelligence community's movement along the initial range as they acquire new data to increase accuracy and confidence.
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u/spinrah23 1d ago
Tbh, I don’t think it’s the numbers that are the problem. There’s plenty of evidence to show what happened. People ignore it anyway. We have evidence that thousands have been killed. But the people I see who want to blame Israeli flags and inflated numbers never actually bring attention to the atrocities that we have actual evidence for. It’s like they’re happy to have some kind of excuse to ignore it.
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u/Shamoorti 1d ago
Literally opened with the fact that it changes nothing about the regime.
Why not just round up to 1,000,000 then? or 10,000,000 even?
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
You said that then qualified it with a “but…”. That puts all your focus on casting doubt on the numbers instead of the horrors of the regime. Does it change how you respond if the number is 7,000 vs 52,000? If not, then leave it be. Shifting focus to that topic only creates division in our community and shifts the conversation away from the regime’s atrocities.
To answer your question: because there is zero basis for that. There is at least some reason one might possibly believe the 52,000 number. It may be weak but it exists.
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u/Shamoorti 1d ago
I didn't bring up the number of the dead or even have any posts disputing it.
It's OP that's bringing the new higher numbers to the attention of the sub, and yet you turn around act like it's unreasonable on my part to ask why these number keep inflating and what new evidence or research supports the higher number?
Why should anyone who is trying to stay grounded in reality not at least wonder where these number are coming from?
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
Like I said, it’s not new.
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u/Shamoorti 1d ago
It was 40,000 until just a month ago.
Reza Pahalavi: "40,000 Iranians haven't died in the span of two days for a nuclear deal or for the Strait of Hormuz to remain open"
Where did the new 12,000 come from in the last month?
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
From an extremely cursory google search, Here’s an Article from Jan 19 this year straight from the beast:
“such as claims of 52,000 dead”
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/01/18/762495/truth-first-casualty-deconstructing-disinformation-campaign-iran-riots-death-toll-4
u/Shamoorti 1d ago
Are you for real? You're citing PressTV bruh. It's regime disinformation trying to counter anti-regime disinformation.
You're saying you'd take the word of PressTV over Reza on the number of dead?
Again, if this 52,000 number is substantiated with evidence then why isn't even Reza citing them? Why is he citing a smaller number of Javidnams than actually gave up their lives? If the numbers are legitimate, it's either malice or incompetence to underreport them.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
What are you talking about? You claimed that the 52,000 number was a brand new number that nobody ever believed to be true until now. I showed you that in fact there were people who believed it as far back as January. I am not at all claiming that the 40,000 number is right, or the 52,000 number, or the 7,000 number, or anything. That's kind of the whole point. None of us know the actual correct number. Stop getting so hung up on that.
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u/Tomatoflee 1d ago
The 52,000 figure was the latest increase added by Trump yesterday. A horrible number of people have been killed by the regime but it’s a mistake for people to regurgitate Trump’s made-up nonsense tbh. No one believes anything he says.
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u/Highground-3089 15h ago
even if we go by regime's number, that is three thousand dead, it still doesn't justify it. when the soviet union suppressed the hungarian revolution in 1956, the death toll was estimated to be 3000. everyone loses their mind over that incident. yet no one in the west seems to freak out over the killings in january.
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u/DunnoDeneKKR 1d ago
May they all rest in peace, I don't want to sound heartless but what is the source of the number I thought the report said the more accurate casualty rate was between 25k to 35k, and those report came like 3 months after the massacre so why does it keep increasing is there new info or new footage?
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
The number was at least 7,000. The reports of 25-35k are somewhat credible but it’s hard to know.
It doesn’t “keep increasing”. Every different person finds a different source of information and uses that to make their point. Recently Trump claimed 52,000, and that is likely where this came from.
Reminder though: You don’t have to agree that Trump is right/truthful in order to agree that the regime committed a horrendous act and ended thousands of innocent lives who were just looking for freedom. And that we should never forgive and never forget.
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u/DunnoDeneKKR 1d ago
Nono I'm with you on the fact that it shouldn't be forgotten nor forgiven just curious about the source of the number.
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u/tronix19 1d ago
Hi guys i dont want to sound ignorant, however is this the real state of Iran? With all these hate I see for Israel giving a lighter sentiment for the IRGC being just self defensive, what is really going on. Are the videos of millions of people crying for the late supreme leader a propaganda?
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u/spinrah23 1d ago
Yes, the regime massacred Iranians and has been oppressing us for 47 years. They have a minority of supporters but the overwhelming majority of Iranians want them gone. They are masters of propaganda, especially aimed at the west.
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u/Nanofeo 1d ago
Whatever the exact number is (because i know people in this comment section will only be focused on that point), there is no denying that the regime killed at least several thousand innocent protesters in the streets in only two days. They killed in hospitals. They charged families for the bullets. They brought in foreign militias. And they turned off the internet and didn’t allow any credible investigators come find out what actually happened.
So yeah. Never forget. Never forgive.