Who was behind Iran’s deadly crackdown?

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News on Wednesday that Tehran had “no plan to execute protesters.” President Donald Trump told reporters he had it “on good authority” that the killing of protesters had stopped.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Tehran had halted 800 executions slated for the previous day following warnings by Trump.

Taken at face value, such statements by Iranian officialdom appear to mark official restraint. A closer look at the Islamic Republic’s record suggests otherwise.

Tehran has rarely—perhaps never—executed individuals under the formal charge of participating in an illegal gathering. Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, that offense does not carry the death penalty and is typically punishable by imprisonment.

In that narrow, technical sense, officials can plausibly claim that the state does not execute people for protesting. The distinction, however, lies in how protesters are subsequently defined.

Renaming protesters

Across successive protest movements, Iranian authorities have routinely reframed demonstrations by dividing participants into shifting categories: first “peaceful protesters” and “rioters,” and more recently “vandals,” “saboteurs” and “terrorists.”

These labels are not merely rhetorical. Each carries specific legal consequences.

“Security forces and the judiciary will show no tolerance whatsoever toward saboteurs," Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement on Jan. 9.

The stark warning came a day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Tehran would accept legitimate economic protests but stop "rioters."

Once a detainee is removed from the category of protester, prosecutors gain access to a separate set of charges—including moharebeh (warring against God), efsad-fel-arz (corruption on earth), terrorism, armed action or collaboration with hostile states—all of which can carry the death penalty.

The underlying conduct may remain the same, but its legal classification changes.

In this way, the state’s claim that it does not execute protesters is technically consistent with its practice. Executions occur only after protest-related activity has been reclassified as a more serious offense.

The real danger

This approach is also reflected in the government’s longstanding assertion that it “recognizes the right to protest” while opposing only “chaos” or “violence.” In practice, independent demonstrations have not been permitted for decades.

Pro-government rallies, often organized by state institutions, proceed without restriction, while applications for lawful protests by independent political groups, civil organizations and even officially registered parties are routinely denied, regardless of legal compliance.

The result is a system in which the boundary between lawful protest and criminal conduct is not defined in advance, but determined after the fact. Legal terminology becomes flexible, allowing prosecutors to retrofit charges once arrests have been made.

This history helps explain why assurances based on terminology alone offer little protection.

In the absence of an independent judiciary, transparent trials or due process safeguards, commitments not to execute “protesters” leave ample room for coercive confessions, security-driven indictments and capital charges under different names.

The danger, then, is not that the Islamic Republic will execute people for protesting. It is that those who protest may still face execution once they have been renamed.

"The pampered offspring of Iran’s ruling elite are living the American Dream as the country’s brutal regime kills protesters by the thousands — and fed-up Iranians in California and across the US want them out," the outlet wrote.

The report said two online petitions are demanding the deportation of Eissa Hashemi, the son of former Iranian vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar, and Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of Ali Larijani, who currently serves as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

According to the Post, Hashemi lives in California and works as an academic, while Ardeshir-Larijani resides in Georgia and is a medical professor.

The petitions said that allowing relatives of Iranian leaders to live in the United States is unjust as Iranian authorities continue a deadly crackdown on protesters at home.

The development comes as the United States imposed new sanctions on Thursday against Ali Larijani, citing his role in overseeing the government’s response to nationwide protests.

The measures were part of a broader sanctions package targeting senior Iranian officials and entities accused of involvement in the violent crackdown on demonstrators.

Iran’s deadly crackdown on nationwide protests has drawn international attention, with the United Nations Security Council holding an emergency session on Thursday at the request of the United States to discuss developments in Iran and the reported use of lethal force against demonstrators.

In the meeting, the United States and several other countries condemned the violence and urged restraint, while Iranian representatives pushed back against foreign criticism.

Turkish officials have acknowledged that the unrest is rooted in genuine domestic grievances, but warned against what they describe as external efforts to exploit the turmoil.

This balancing act reflects Turkey’s dual position.

A NATO member with institutional ties to the West, Ankara is also a pragmatic regional power deeply embedded in Middle Eastern geopolitics. Its approach to Iran’s crisis has been shaped less by ideological alignment than by concern over how prolonged instability could affect Turkey’s borders, economy and regional posture.

Senior officials, including Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and spokesperson for the ruling AKP party Ömer Çelik, have framed the protests as domestically driven but vulnerable to manipulation by outside actors, particularly Israel.

"We are against a military intervention against Iran," Fidan said on Wednesday. Iran needs to solve its authentic internal problems on its own."

At the same time, Turkey has avoided explicitly endorsing Tehran’s security response, signaling unease with the scale of repression.

Shared interests

Behind the public rhetoric, Turkish diplomacy has intensified.

Reports in Turkish media this week suggest that Ankara has remained in close contact with Tehran, Western partners and Arab countries surrounding the Persian Gulf—urging de-escalation and arguing against US intervention.

This is despite Turkey and Iran standing on opposing sides of regional conflicts in recent years, notably in Syria and Iraq.

The Kurdish question adds another layer of sensitivity. Both states oppose Kurdish separatism, but Turkish officials have long accused Iran of tolerating or exploiting groups linked to the PKK, which Ankara considers an existential threat.

But such rivalries have often given way to pragmatism.

Bilateral trade reached roughly $10 billion in 2024, and Iran supplies about 15 percent of Turkey’s natural gas under a pipeline agreement set to expire in mid-2026. Tourism, transportation links and security coordination have continued even during periods of political tension.

Turkey has also consistently opposed US sanctions on Iran, arguing they harm regional trade and ordinary Iranians more than decision-makers in Tehran.

Impartial intermediary

Public messaging during the current crisis has been carefully calibrated.

On January 12, Ömer Çelik warned that foreign intervention would “lead to greater crises,” urging negotiations while acknowledging Iran’s internal problems. Fidan echoed that line and sought to downplay the scale of unrest—perhaps to discourage escalation.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also largely avoided inflammatory rhetoric. Rather than issuing public condemnations or threats, he convened security meetings to assess potential spillover risks.

Turkish authorities restricted demonstrations near Iran’s consulate in Istanbul, aiming to reassure Tehran of shared security interests.

Overall, Ankara has sought to position itself as a potential intermediary rather than a partisan actor.

Retaining regional influence

Prolonged unrest in Iran raises the prospect of refugee flows that Turkey, already hosting millions of displaced people from Syria and elsewhere, is politically and economically ill-equipped to absorb.

Large-scale displacement from Iran would strain public services, intensify domestic backlash against migrants and complicate relations with the European Union.

Economic exposure reinforces that caution. Iran remains a key energy supplier, and any disruption, particularly during winter, would push up prices and inflation in Turkey’s already fragile economy. With the gas contract nearing renewal, Ankara has strong incentives to avoid a rupture with Tehran.

A wider military confrontation involving Iran would also threaten Turkey’s commercial routes and military positions in Iraq and Syria.

Ultimately, Turkey’s response reflects strategic self-preservation. By combining public restraint with private engagement, Ankara aims to shield itself from instability, protect critical economic links and preserve leverage regardless of how events in Iran unfold.

Whether the Islamic Republic emerges intact or weakened, Turkey appears determined to remain positioned as a consequential regional actor—even as unrest across its border underscores how rarely domestic crises in the Middle East remain contained.

The remarks he made in a video message seek to define what Iran would do in practical terms across security, diplomacy, energy, governance, and the economy after the fall of the clerical system.

Rather than focusing on personalities or transitional mechanics, Pahlavi presents a policy-based framework that contrasts sharply with the Islamic Republic’s record of confrontation, sanctions exposure, and institutional opacity. The message is structured around specific sectors, each tied to measurable shifts in behavior and outcomes.

Ending confrontation as a security doctrine

“In security and foreign policy, Iran’s nuclear military program will end. Support for terrorist groups will cease immediately. A free Iran will work with regional and global partners to confront terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and extremist Islamism,” said Pahlavi in his message.

Iran’s security posture has been the principal driver of its isolation for more than four decades. Sanctions linked to the nuclear program, ballistic missile development, and support for armed groups have cut Iran off from large parts of the global economy since the mid-1990s. Even during periods of diplomacy, such as after the 2015 nuclear agreement, parallel regional policies limited normalization and kept secondary sanctions risks alive for investors.

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Pahlavi’s proposal centers on abandoning confrontation as a governing doctrine. Ending any military dimension of the nuclear program would place Iran fully back under international nonproliferation norms, reopening the path to inspections, sanctions relief, and structured security dialogue. Cooperation on transnational crime and drug trafficking – areas where Iran’s geography makes it a key transit state – would align Tehran with existing UN and regional initiatives rather than leaving it outside them.

From regional spoiler to regional stakeholder

“Iran will act as a friend and a stabilizing force in the region. And it will be a responsible partner in global security,” the exiled prince added.

The Islamic Republic’s regional strategy has relied heavily on influence through allied militias and political networks, particularly in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. While this approach expanded Iran’s footprint, it also generated sustained pushback from Arab states and contributed to cycles of escalation that raised economic and military costs.

Recasting Iran as a regional stakeholder would imply a shift toward formal state-to-state engagement, confidence-building measures with Persian Gulf neighbors, and participation in multilateral security mechanisms. Practical steps could include joint maritime security arrangements, border coordination, and structured regional dialogue – tools that have been largely absent from Iran’s regional policy toolkit.

A clean break with four decades of diplomatic estrangement

“In diplomacy, relations with the United States will be normalized and our friendship with America and her people will be restored. The State of Israel will be recognized immediately,” said Pahlavi.

“We will pursue the expansion of the Abraham Accords into the Cyrus accords bringing together a free Iran, Israel, and the Arab world.”

Diplomatic normalization sits at the center of the proposed reset. Iran has lacked formal relations with the United States since 1980 and with Israel since 1979, a rupture that has shaped its entire foreign policy architecture. Recognition and normalization would reverse this trajectory, embedding Iran in the same regional diplomatic frameworks that have expanded since 2020.

Such a shift would have concrete effects: reopening embassies, restoring direct financial channels, enabling aviation and trade links, and allowing Iran to participate in regional investment and infrastructure projects from which it has long been excluded.

Turning vast reserves into predictable supply

“In energy, Iran holds some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. A free Iran will become a reliable energy supplier to the free world,” the son Iran’s former Shah said.

“Policy-making will be transparent. Iran’s actions will be responsible. Prices will be predictable.”

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Iran holds roughly 10 percent of global proven oil reserves and about 15 percent of natural gas reserves, yet sanctions and underinvestment have kept production well below potential. Oil output has fluctuated between 2 and 3.8 million barrels per day over the past decade, often constrained by export restrictions and opaque trading practices.

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  Iran’s crisis and the limits of sovereignty

A transparent energy policy would enable long-term contracts, foreign investment in aging infrastructure, and integration into global pricing systems. Predictability – rather than leverage – would become the sector’s defining feature, turning energy exports into a stabilizing economic anchor rather than a geopolitical liability.

Governance as the foundation of credibility

“In transparency and governance, Iran will adopt and enforce international standards. Money laundering will be confronted. Organized corruption will be dismantled. Public institutions will answer to the people.”

Iran’s exclusion from global banking networks has been driven not only by sanctions but also by persistent concerns over financial transparency and institutional accountability. Failure to meet international anti–money laundering and counter-terror financing standards has limited access to correspondent banking even during diplomatic openings.

Adopting international governance standards would have immediate economic implications, enabling banks, insurers, and investors to reengage. More broadly, institutional accountability would shift the state from discretionary rule toward predictable administration, a prerequisite for sustained economic growth.

Reconnecting Iran’s economy to global capital and trade

“In the economy, Iran is one of the world’s last great untapped markets. Our population is educated, modern, with a diaspora that connects it to the four corners of the world,” said Pahlavi.

“A democratic Iran will open its economy to trade, investment, and innovation. And Iran will seek to invest in the world.”

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With a population of around 90 million and high tertiary education rates, Iran has long been viewed by economists as a middle-income economy with unrealized potential. Years of sanctions, capital controls, and politicized regulation have instead driven capital flight and underinvestment.

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  Iran crossed a political threshold

Opening the economy would involve restoring property rights, stabilizing currency policy, and reintegrating Iran into global trade and financial systems. The Iranian diaspora – numbering in the millions – represents a ready source of capital, expertise, and global connectivity if legal and political barriers are removed.

A future defined by national interest, not ideology

“This is not an abstract vision. It is a practical one. Grounded in national interest, stability, and cooperation,” reads Pahlavi’s latest message.

The roadmap for Iran’s reintegration into the global system contrasts sharply with the Islamic Republic’s record of isolation driven by ideology, sanctions exposure, and institutional opacity.

By anchoring change in measurable policy shifts – rather than slogans – Pahlavi’s framework addresses a central question for international audiences: not whether Iran can rejoin the world, but what rules it would follow if it does.

The accounts, shared in short voice messages over encrypted apps between 13 and 15 January, come from two people in Tehran—a journalist and a business owner—and an engineer in Isfahan.

All three are political activists who have been present in multiple rounds of protests over the years, giving them a clear basis for comparison and a sharp memory of how earlier protests unfolded.

Each stressed that their impressions were drawn not only from what they personally witnessed, but from conversations with friends, relatives, employees, and colleagues across multiple cities and towns.

All three said the demonstrations on the evening of 8 January dwarfed any other round of protests they had seen or known of. One described the crowds as numbering in the millions nationwide.

A European diplomat, citing intelligence shared with Iran International, said their information indicates that at least 1.5 million people took to the streets in Tehran on Thursday, 8 January.

He said the number was lower on Friday, 9 January, as security forces were heavily present in the streets and, in many cases, began shooting as people started to assemble, killing people en masse.

However, the European diplomat who spoke to the channel believes as many as half a million people were present in Tehran on Friday despite the mass killing.

The number of people in other cities is unclear due to the lack of foreign diplomatic presence outside Tehran—all embassies are in the capital. However, their intelligence estimate is that at least 5 million people participated in nationwide protests on Thursday and Friday.

What set that Thursday night apart, the three eyewitnesses said, was timing.

Protests had already been unfolding for more than a week when exiled prince Reza Pahlavi called for coordinated demonstrations at 8pm on 8 and 9 January. The appeal, they said, did not initiate the unrest but gave it focus—“an amplifying and organizing effect”, as one put it.

Few expected such numbers to turn out, possibly including the authorities themselves. Security forces were present, but initially appeared unprepared for the scale.

That changed rapidly.

By the following evening, after a speech by supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Friday morning framing the protests as the work of foreign-backed agents, the tone shifted decisively. Security forces were deployed in force well before nightfall. Streets that had filled easily a night earlier were saturated with armed personnel.

“It was a massacre,” the engineer said of the violence that followed—an unprecedented massacre in Iran’s modern history. The business owner added: “Everybody you see knows someone who was killed, injured or is missing.”

Iran International reported this week that at least 12,000 people were killed in the crackdown, a figure leaked to us from Iran’s presidential office and the Supreme National Security Council amid the blackout—a sign that the death toll has grown so vast it has shaken the conscience of people inside the system, pushing them to let the number out.

“This is the same system that helped kill hundreds of thousands of people in Syria to keep Bashar al-Assad in power,” the business owner said. “How many do you think it’s willing to kill for its own survival?”

They described the crackdown continuing well beyond the demonstrations themselves. In several neighborhoods, they said, an informal curfew has taken hold: being outside after dark is enough to risk being stopped, searched or detained.

Thousands are believed to have been arrested. In the days before the protests, many ordinary Iranians posted on Instagram urging others to join demonstrations on Thursday and Friday. Many businesses—including ordinary shopkeepers—also posted videos saying they would close on Thursday and Friday to join the protests.

Many doctors posted basic guidance on how to help the injured, or invited people to contact them if they needed medical help. Now that the internet is down, those posts are still there, and security forces are using them to identify and arrest the people who shared them.

“It’s ongoing,” the journalist said. “They’re knocking on doors now, especially of people who posted Instagram stories just before the 8th, when everyone was pumped up and reckless.”

Even those who stayed home have not been spared.

The engineer said several students he knew who had avoided the protests, but had expressed general sympathy online, had since been summoned and charged.

Witnesses also described widespread slogans and chants in support of Reza Pahlavi, echoing through streets and squares before security forces moved in.

Contrary to Tehran’s narrative, all three insisted, those who took to the streets were not “terrorists” but fed-up ordinary Iranians struggling to make ends meet, looking for a way out of what they feel is irreversible deterioration.

“The economy has been going downhill for almost a decade,” the business owner said. “Before that, there were ups and downs. Now it’s all down—and people believe it will only get worse.”
In his factory, the engineer said, most workers joined the protests on both nights. One was seriously injured; another is still missing. Many, he noted, had voted for reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian just a year earlier.

“It shows they’re willing to try anything they think might improve their lives even a tiny bit.”

Messages from outside Iran also helped drive turnout. US President Donald Trump urged Iranians to keep taking to the streets, saying “help is on the way”.

The three said the posts—and other public signals of support—spread quickly through private chats and family networks inside Iran, encouraging people to go out despite the risk.
What followed, the three said, was as striking and as sudden as the demonstrations themselves: silence.

“It’s been a cull, not just of bodies, but of souls,” the business owner said. “I can’t see the will to fight right now.” The engineer described an atmosphere of pervasive grief. “The city smells of death,” he said. “As if human ashes have been spread all over Iran.”

None of the three supports foreign military intervention. Yet all said a majority of people they speak to now openly wish for a US attack, seeing no internal path forward. “It’s certainly the prevailing sentiment,” the journalist said.

The engineer described near-universal support for that view among his workers. “It’s sad in every sense of the word,” he said. “Utter and absolute despair.”

For now, under tightened security and a suffocating blackout, the question is what comes next. One of the three warned that the most damaging consequence may be the loss of agency itself—the sense that change, if it comes at all, must arrive from outside.

“I’d say Trump attempting regime change is as likely as Trump making a deal,” the business owner said. “No one knows where this ship is going. For now, most people are too seasick to even look ahead.”