Several NGOs denounced on Sunday (January 11, 2026) that the death toll from the repression of protests in Iran was in the hundreds, while the country remained without internet access and citizen demonstrations against the government continued into the night. Human rights groups accuse the authorities of committing a “massacre” to quell the protests. According to testimony from relatives of victims published this Sunday by the website of the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), based in Oslo, Norway, the bodies in the morgues number in the “hundreds,” most of them “young people between the ages of 18 and 22 who were shot at close range.” This is how the parents of Rubina Aminian, a 23-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student killed on the afternoon of Thursday, January 8, during the protests in Tehran, described it. They traveled to the capital to identify their daughter's remains and were granted access to the morgue, according to the NGO.

Eight police officers also died

For its part, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which operates from the United States, stated this Saturday that the number of confirmed deaths during the demonstrations has risen to 116 and the number of detainees to 2,600, despite the disruption of the flow of information caused by internet outages. HRANA reported in its latest information that the protests reached their peak last Thursday, January 8, after at least 96 demonstrations in 27 of the country's 31 provinces, which led the ayatollahs' regime to implement a blackout of internet and international telephone service that continues to this day. Meanwhile, the Iranian news agency Tasnim, linked to the Islamic regime and one of the few that continues to update its content amidst the blockade, reported this Sunday the deaths of eight members of the security forces between last Wednesday and Thursday from "attacks with firearms" and other objects. According to the agency, several government sources confirmed the arrest of nearly 200 leaders of "terrorist groups" and the confiscation of "a considerable amount of ammunition, weapons,grenades and Molotov cocktails in the rioters' hideouts.”

Iran will retaliate against US targets

Iran will strike US military and naval targets if Washington attacks it during the current wave of protests, the Speaker of Parliament warned on Sunday. “In the event of a US military attack, both the occupied territory and US military and naval centers will be our legitimate targets,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, quoted by state television. He appears to be referring to Israel with the expression “occupied territory,” a country that Iran does not recognize and considers occupied Palestinian territory.