Iran kills protesters then forces families to say they were pro-regime

Farhad was blinded by the gas canister that struck his face when a bullet pierced his neck.

Iranian security forces had fired on him during clashes with anti-regime protesters on the streets of Tehran.

His friends screamed his name as he lay in a pool of blood. Meanwhile, his phone buzzed in his pocket with the unanswered calls from his parents.

Two weeks after his death, his body remained out of reach from his parents in a government morgue – held hostage by the Iranian authorities.

In what has become a routine case of blackmail, officials are demanding Farhad’s mourning family sign a document declaring he wasn’t a protester at all.

They claim he was a member of the security forces, mown down in cold blood by violent anti-government rioters.

Some families are refusing to play ball.

Milad, whose name has been changed over fears for his safety, told The Telegraph: “I will never sign their documents.

“The entire system is built on lies. The government is built on lies. I sacrificed my son for freedom. My heart is burning. He left this world like a lion.”

His refusal to sign means that his son’s body remains in a government morgue, held hostage by the Iranian authorities.

Milad is not alone. Witness accounts collected by The Telegraph show a campaign of government murder, coercion, harassment and blackmail to depict dead protesters as the very people who killed them.

Some of the families of the nearly 5,000 protesters killed during the protests are being told they must pay up to £16,000 to be allowed to bury their loved ones, The Telegraph understands. If they say they were part of the regime, the fee is waived.

For some, their children are buried without them knowing.

One family spent four days searching hospitals and morgues for Javad, a 25-year-old university student who went out on the streets of Shiraz to protest with friends and never returned.

On the fifth day, officials from the intelligence ministry called. He was dead, they were told, killed by other protesters. The distraught family were told he’d already been buried and they were shown his grave, located in a section for security forces killed in the protests.

“He wasn’t killed by protesters,” said Javad’s uncle, who The Telegraph is not naming due to safety concerns.

He added: “The people he went out with were all his friends. They began clashing with repressive forces and lost him – they did not know he had been shot. Doctors told us he was shot in the chest.

“He is no martyr of the Islamic Republic.”

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Norway-based Iran Human Rights, said his colleagues have documented multiple cases across the country following the same pattern.

He said the regime aims to conflate the number of security forces killed and reduce the number of protesters killed.

Mr Amiry-Moghaddam added: “One reason for this practice is that the regime seeks to avoid international pressure for killing protesters.

“Another motive is to prepare the ground for future executions of protesters. Families will later be coerced into publicly demanding the execution of those responsible for the deaths, rather than exposing the reality that protesters were killed and then falsely portrayed as security force members.”

But some families, like Farhad’s, are refusing to sign the documents brought to them by the security forces.

For them, Iranian authorities are charging extortionate amounts for them to retrieve their relatives’ bodies. The fees vary depending on what officials determine the families can afford.

One family was forced to pay more than £8,000 to retrieve their loved one’s body, The Telegraph understands.

Another was told to pay £16,000 and sign a statement declaring their son was a Basij member – required to both pay and lie as the full price of grief.

“They look at people’s bank accounts, and whoever is wealthier, they demand more money from them,” one witness said.

The ransoms appear designed not just to generate revenue but to test families’ willingness to comply.

Those who pay demonstrate submission, while those who refuse are forced to face indefinite separation from their dead.

The coercion begins the moment families start searching for their dead loved ones.

Multiple witnesses have described a bureaucratic nightmare at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, where authorities initially deny bodies exist, then direct families to massive halls functioning as mass morgues.

Alireza Rahimi, 26, was a shop owner in Tehran known for his fairness and kindness. On Jan 8, security forces shot him in the back.

His family’s search for his body revealed the scale of death and the sadistic efficiency of the state’s response.

Families who couldn’t locate bodies in the halls were directed outside to refrigerated trucks – ice cream delivery vehicles and dairy transporters forced into service as mobile morgues because the hangars ran out of space.

Rahimi’s family eventually found him with the help of an ambulance driver they paid to navigate the bureaucracy.

His death certificate lists the cause as “impact with a hard object”, instead of a gunshot wound – the official lie extending to medical documents.

In Hamedan, 25-year-old Amir Bayat was killed by direct government fire during protests. Authorities refused to return his body to his widow unless the family identifies him as a Basij member.

In Nazarabad, 38-year-old Alireza Robat Jazei ran a shop. He had just got engaged when he was shot in the back. His family was faced with the same demand: sign a lie or forfeit the body.

For families who retrieve bodies – whether by succumbing to lies or ransoms – the pressure continues through burial.

Alireza Rahimi’s friends and family members held a birthday ceremony for him out of grief. They played music instead of religious songs. Neighbours gathered to clap and chant his name.

Back in Rey, Farhad’s father remains firm in his refusal.

Farhad had been learning Spanish. He practised his conjugations at night after work and stumbled over the future tense.

His textbook remains open on his desk, a bookmark holding his place in a lesson he will never finish.

His fiancé hasn’t spoken since learning of his death. Doctors say it’s psychological shock – a complete withdrawal from a reality too painful to process.

His mother wakes up sometimes and forgets, just for a moment, that he’s gone. She calls his name before remembering. Then her body gives out again, collapsing under grief too heavy to carry.

“I did not raise my son to die for dictators,” his father said. “He had no role in the IRGC, Basij or any part of the regime.”

A spokesman for the British Government said: “We utterly condemn the terrible violence being used by the Iranian regime against those exercising their right to peaceful protest.

“The Government has already sanctioned the IRGC in its entirety, as well as more than 550 Iranian individuals and entities, and set out a robust package of measures to tackle threats from the Iranian regime.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]