Iran protesters forced to pay for the bullets that killed their relatives

The Iranian government claims it has regained control but it has come at a devastating cost

By Sahar Zand - January 16, 2026

Nearly three weeks into nationwide anti-regime protests in Iran, all eyes are on Donald Trump. Will he take military action against Iran? And if he does, what will that mean for a population trapped between a regime they are risking their lives to topple and the world’s most powerful military threatening to attack their soil?

Following a brutal crackdown and a nearly week-long internet blackout imposed across the nation, the Government claims it has regained control. If so, it has come at a devastating cost.

“Security forces were killing everyone,” a woman from Mashhad in north-eastern Iran told me. “We are practically at war, except only the other side has guns.”

Footage filmed at enormous personal risk and shared from inside the country shows bodies strewn across streets, in morgues and public spaces. One human rights group estimates that more than 3,000 people have been killed since the crackdown began, while other organisations suggest the true figure could be far higher.

The regime has acknowledged a high death toll, but insists the violence was carried out by terrorists and troublemakers backed by foreign enemies, predictably naming the US and Israel.

One source, a man in his 30s from Tehran, told me via an encrypted app that authorities are refusing to release the bodies of those killed unless families pay large sums of money and sign documents declaring their loved ones “regime martyrs” or “pro-regime protesters”. It appears to be part of a broader effort to conceal the true scale of the killings.

Other reports emerging from inside Iran suggest that families are being forced to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives, a claim corroborated by journalists and sources with access inside the country.

Meanwhile, political prisoners and civil activists who were already behind bars before the protests, including the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, remain in detention. Families say they have heard nothing from them and fear the worst, especially as the already overcrowded jails become flooded with protestors.

Much of the information that has emerged from Iran since the blackout has come via slow, covert and illegal Starlink connections; a satellite internet system operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX that bypasses local infrastructure.

But Iranian authorities are cracking down on this too, with reports of arbitrary house searches, satellite dishes being confiscated and their owners arrested.

As crowds have thinned on the streets, fear is growing that yet another brutal phase may now be beginning.

Hundreds have reportedly been arrested, and at least one protester – 26-year-old Erfan Soltani – was due to be executed less than a week after being detained. Human rights activists warn this is a familiar tactic. After nearly half a century of rule, many Iranians believe a “wounded” regime is often at its most lethal.

eed with outside help. Our hands are empty and we need help.”

Iranians are risking everything to demand the fall of the Islamic Republic – a call that has resurfaced repeatedly over the past 15 years, from the 2009 Green Movement to the 2019 “Bloody Aban” protests, and most recently the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising sparked by the state-sanctioned killing of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. Each wave has been broader and more organised than the last.

Yet the power imbalance is stark. It is hard to see how meaningful change can occur without external pressure and many are deeply conflicted about what that might look like. Who wants their home invaded?

When foreign leaders say “help is on the way”, it can point to very different outcomes; some aimed at the regime, others paid for by ordinary people.

Trump’s motivations are widely mistrusted. “No one believes Trump’s true motivation is defending human rights in Iran!” is a refrain I hear repeatedly, inside and outside Iran. His rhetoric is inseparable, for many Iranians, from memories of Iraq, Syria and Libya – nations where intervention toppled rulers but shattered societies. Given Trump’s long fixation on Iran’s nuclear programme, and his record elsewhere, suspicion runs deep.

Iranians increasingly feel trapped in a headlock between two brutal options: a foreign military strike on their soil or continued repression under an autocracy where freedom of speech is nonexistent and a young, highly educated population is denied basic rights.

This is no longer merely an internal Iranian crisis. Since the Second World War, mass killing by state authorities has been recognised as an international crime. By that standard, what is unfolding in Iran demands more than statements, and silence is itself a choice.

The UK Government’s response so far has been strikingly muted. Britain has clear grounds, moral, legal and practical, to act. Iran has repeatedly been linked to hostile activity on UK soil, including intimidation campaigns and plots, as well as networks that fuel extremism and antisemitism.

Putting meaningful pressure on the Iranian regime, and supporting those challenging it, is therefore not only a moral obligation but also a matter of national security.

There are concrete steps Britain could take: issuing stronger warnings, freezing assets, isolating Iranian officials diplomatically, proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation and expelling regime representatives. These measures would not only support Iranians but would help protect British citizens.

The Islamic Republic may have bought itself time through brute force. But history suggests that regimes ruling through fear eventually exhaust it. Iran’s economy remains crippled, and its population is no longer demanding reform but justice for the deaths of their loved ones. A generation that has buried its dead has little left to lose.

What happens next will depend in part on decisions made far from Iran’s streets, in Washington, in London and beyond. But Iranians themselves are clear about one thing. They want the end of the Islamic Republic and a democratic, secular future chosen by them.