During a rare but brief break in Iran’s prolonged internet shutdown, protesters have reported that security forces are demanding money—sometimes thousands of dollars—before releasing the bodies of those killed in recent unrest. The allegations, which emerged in private online chats, describe a grim practice of extorting grieving families amid a nationwide crackdown.
One participant in a group chat described seeing “endless dead bodies” in a local hospital near Kermanshah, and claimed that security forces deliberately shot demonstrators in sensitive areas with live rounds. Another account detailed how families are pressed to pay up to 800 million tomans, the equivalent of roughly $5,200, for the return of a relative’s remains. In some cases, the report said, entire families pooled their resources to meet the demand. Funerals, too, are allegedly being prohibited.
One person who spoke to a local acquaintance confirmed that a young woman was shot in the throat on her way home. Her body was eventually released without charge only after authorities decided she was not a protester. The same source noted that others have been charged a “bullet fee” of about 1 billion tomans, or around $7,000, and were forbidden from holding any ceremony.
The Iranian foreign ministry has denied such practices, calling the reports baseless. But those inside the country who managed to get online during the brief connectivity window offered a starkly different version of events. The partial restoration of internet service, observed by monitoring groups like NetBlocks, remains selective and uneven, with access varying by region and service.
The blackout has made it extremely difficult to independently verify the scale of the violence. A U.S.-based activist group has confirmed over 4,500 deaths, with thousands more under investigation. Other estimates place the toll between 5,000 and 20,000. Iran’s Supreme Leader acknowledged that “several thousand people” have died, but blamed the unrest on foreign-backed “seditious” groups.
Although mass street protests appear to have been suppressed in many areas, the underlying anger remains undiminished. As one person wrote in a group chat: “People here are angry, frustrated, grieving and helpless.”