A morgue overflowing with more body bags than answers amid Iran’s latest crackdown on dissent

By Hira Humayun, CNN

(CNN) — Iranians screamed in anguish and cried in confusion as they gathered beside bodies shrouded in black bags in a makeshift morgue at the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center and lying on the ground outside the facility south of Tehran.

Videos making their way past Iran’s internet blackout circulated over the weekend, revealing harrowing scenes from earlier in the week. People tried to identify their loved ones among dozens of bodies inside warehouse-like rooms and on the ground outside the forensics center — casualties of Iran’s latest spate of heavy-handed crackdowns on dissent. Mass anti-government protests triggered by deteriorating economic conditions have gripped the country, presenting the Iranian regime with its biggest challenge in years.

Video obtained by CNN show a crowd of people gathered in front of a monitor that displays photos of deceased individuals as their loved ones crowd around, trying to identify them. According to information seen on the screen and images received by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), around 250 bodies are estimated to be at the facility.

Another clip, from the forensic facility, shows black body bags lined up on a walkway outside the building, with people gathered around. Some bodies are scattered across what appears to be the facility’s courtyard. Others lie on unpaved ground. Some are just feet away from parked cars, as families frantically search for the remains of their loved ones.

The activist group Mamlekate said Saturday that the number of bodies taken to the forensic institute is so high that they are being lined up in the courtyard.

Another video, recorded Friday, shows the inside of a warehouse near the forensic center. The room, fashioned into a makeshift morgue, is packed with bodies in black bags, lined up in rows on the floor and on metal tables

Iranian state media acknowledged the grim scenes at the medical facility but insisted that the bodies seen are mostly those of “ordinary people” — bystanders who got dragged into the protests. The state media blamed their deaths on “rioters.”

The counter-narrative

The state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency and Student News Agency posted a video with scenes from the vicinity of the forensics center. The state media reporter says he was at the medical examiner’s office and spoke to families. The video shows his conversations with grieving loved ones who tell him their relatives were not protesters and were not inclined to protest.

One bereaved man sitting on the floor beside a body in a black bag tells the state media reporter in tears that his loved one was hit in the head with a rock thrown by an unknown person from the top of a building. The man says his loved one was pro-government.

The state media reporter then turns to the camera and says protesters who “aimed to clash” with security forces or “wanted to seize a (military) base or something and may have used arms” are also among the dead.

“But most of these people were ordinary people, and (their) families are ordinary families,” he says.

The reports reflect a concerted effort by the Iranian government to blame protesters for the violence in the country and warn others against joining the demonstrations. With Iran’s history of violent repression at the hands of state security forces, and accounts emerging from the country over the past few days, rights groups say the evidence outweighs any counter-narrative from the government.

The Iranian authorities are responsible for the deaths and injuries of bystanders at the protests, said Michael Page, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.

The Iranian government has cautioned citizens against joining “rioters and terrorists” and foreign backed “mercenaries” in protests across Iran. President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday differentiated between people peacefully protesting and “rioters” who set out to “disrupt the entire society.” Iran’s attorney general has vowed to pursue merciless legal action against the latter, including the death penalty.

But Iranian authorities have never truly distinguished protesters from “rioters,” Page said. “They’ve treated any type of large-scale protest as a threat to their rule and have used force in accordance with that view.”

The Iranian government has defended the conduct of its security forces. Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni told state television on Saturday that “to an extent,” security personnel “exercise maximum restraint” to avoid harm to fellow citizens.

But eyewitness accounts and human rights groups paint a different picture. People on the ground have told CNN that Iranian security forces have responded to protests with violent force. Two eyewitnesses in Tehran said security forces brandishing military rifles killed “many people” on Friday night. An Iranian social worker who attended a protest in the capital the same day described seeing authorities fire at protesters and use a Taser on a girl in the neck until she passed out Government repression in some cases has pushed people to more “extreme” measures, Page said, and even in those cases lethal force has not been confined to a last-resort measure.

More than 500 protesters, including nine minors, have been killed, and more than 10,000 have been arrested since the protests began in late December, according to HRANA. But given the government’s internet shutdown and the slow trickle of information emerging from Iran, the full scale of casualties remains unclear.

CNN is unable to independently verify these numbers or those from Iranian state-affiliated media, which say more than 100 members of Iran’s security forces have been killed.

As Iran enters Day 6 of its internet blackout, the limited glimpses offered by videos like those from Kahrizak paint a bleak picture of the true extent of the human cost of dissent.

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CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh, Farida Elsebai and Avery Schmitz contributed to this report.