{"id":415729,"date":"2026-01-17T17:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415729\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T17:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:18:15","slug":"irans-supreme-leader-admits-thousands-killed-during-recent-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415729\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s supreme leader admits thousands killed during recent protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Burgessand<\/p>\n

Ghoncheh Habibiazad,BBC Persian<\/p>\n

\"IranianIranian leader press office via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Iran’s supreme leader has for the first time publicly acknowledged that thousands of people were killed, “some in an inhuman, savage manner”, during recent protests.<\/p>\n

A violent response to the unrest has claimed 3,090 lives, according to US-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), with some activist groups putting the death toll far higher. An internet blackout has made it extremely difficult to get clear information.<\/p>\n

In a speech on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said thousands had been killed and blamed the US for the deaths.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump recently urged Iranian demonstrators to “keep protesting” and threatened military intervention if security forces kill them.<\/p>\n

The protests, which began on 28 December over the economy, have turned into calls for the end of the rule of Iran’s supreme leader.<\/p>\n

The Iranian government has called the demonstrations “riots” backed by Iran’s enemies.<\/p>\n

Protesters have been met with deadly force and videos of security forces shooting at demonstrations<\/a> have been authenticated by both BBC Persian and BBC Verify.<\/p>\n

There has also been a near-total shutdown of the internet and communication services in Iran. On Saturday overall connectivity remained at about 2% of ordinary levels, according to cyber monitor NetBlocks.<\/p>\n

There have been fewer reports of unrest in recent days but with internet access still restricted developments on the ground remain unclear. <\/p>\n

A woman in Shiraz, south-western Iran, told BBC Persian that “security forces are still patrolling on motorbikes to keep the situation under control, but overall things have gone back to normal”. <\/p>\n

During his speech on Saturday, Khamenei also said Iran considered President Trump to be a “criminal” and said the US must be “held accountable” for recent unrest.<\/p>\n

He also claimed on social media that “America’s goal is to swallow Iran”. <\/p>\n

Trump has not yet responded to the supreme leader and the BBC has approached the White House for a comment.<\/p>\n

The US state department said on Saturday that it had “heard reports that the Islamic Republic is preparing options to target American bases”.<\/p>\n

It said Iran would be met with “a very, very powerful force” if it launched such an attack and warned Tehran not to “play games with President Trump”.<\/p>\n

The US president said on Wednesday<\/a> he had been told “the killing in Iran has stopped”, but added that he had not ruled out military action against the country.<\/p>\n

His comments came after the US and UK both reduced the number of personnel at the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Officials told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that a partial American withdrawal was a “precautionary measure”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Burgessand Ghoncheh Habibiazad,BBC Persian Iranian leader press office via Getty Images Iran’s supreme leader has for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-415729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}