At least 3,117 people have died in the protests in Iran, according to the first official report

Tehran.- At least 3,117 people have died in the protests that have shaken Iran in recent weeks, according to the first official balance of victims and which human rights organizations abroad consider to be much higher. Of the total balance of victims, 2,427 are civilians and members of the security forces, reported the Foundation of Veterans and Martyrs of Iran in a statement issued last night by the Iranian Government.

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This body did not offer information about the rest of the deceased, but the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, indicated that 690 of the dead were “terrorists, rioters and those who attacked military bases”. The Foundation of Veterans and Martyrs of Iran, a state body, stated that many of the dead were passers-by who were shot, while others were protesters “who were targeted by shots from terrorist agents organized among the crowd,” without providing further information. Human rights organizations based abroad have denounced that thousands of protesters died due to state repression and offer higher figures for the number of deaths. Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Oslo, puts the death toll at 3,428 while the US-based NGO HRANA puts it at 4,519. The Islamic Republic accuses infiltrated mercenaries supported by the United States and Israel of the violence and most deaths in the protests, but human rights organizations denounce a brutal repression. Thus, Amnesty International has denounced a strong state repression and called what happened in these protests a “massacre”, with security forces firing from the roofs of buildings, mosques and police stations against unarmed protesters, and medical centers overwhelmed by the high number of corpses. The protests began at the end of December by merchants from Tehran due to the fall of the rial and soon spread throughout the country calling for the end of the Islamic Republic and reached their peak on Thursday, January 8 and Friday, January 9 with an explosion of demonstrations in practically all of Iran.