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Part of the U.S. government's justification for going to war with Iran was the Iranian government's deadly crackdown on protesters seven months ago. Human rights groups say government forces killed at least 7,000 people over just two days in that crackdown. Although they report the death toll was likely closer to 20,000. As NPR's Durrie Bouscaren reports, eyewitness accounts paint an alarming picture of the extent of the killings. And before we begin, you'll hear the sound of gunshots in this story.
DURRIE BOUSCAREN, BYLINE: In a voice note sent to NPR shortly after the protests in January, a young woman in Tehran sobs as she recounts what she saw.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARAN: They kill people like they're nothing - they're sheeps, or they're something, like, nothing important.
BOUSCAREN: She asked NPR not to share her full name for her safety.
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BARAN: I just hope that I'm killed, too, and they shoot me, but they not. I run away. I'm so sorry that I run away.
BOUSCAREN: The protests began among shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar. They protested rapid inflation and the devaluation of Iran's currency against the dollar. Soon, student groups joined the cause, and everyday people started to fill the streets each night, calling for an overthrow of Iran's clerical regime.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Speaking Persian).
BOUSCAREN: The morning of January 9, a young civil engineer in Tehran prepared packages of rancid cooking oil, rotten eggs and masks - things for the protesters to throw and masks to cover their faces. He also asked NPR not to identify him. He had participated in protests before, he says. He knew the risk, but he felt strongly that this was the only way forward.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) The officials said themselves, they're going to kill anyone who stands against them, to the last soul, and leave a scorched earth.
BOUSCAREN: That evening, he got on his motorbike and started leaving the supplies at certain intersections that he knew would get crowded.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
BOUSCAREN: At 6:30 p.m., a crowd was just starting to form in Fardis, a small city on the outskirts of Tehran. A father and son, Omid and Armin Teymouri Rad, had decided to go to the protest. Armin's mother chose to come along. She asked NPR not to use her name for fear of repercussion from Iran's government but knows that using her family's name means she could still be identified. She says, that night, it seemed safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) It was like a family parade. That's why we all went together. We went as a family.
BOUSCAREN: Her son, 19-year-old Armin, opened Instagram and posted an image with a lion and a sun, symbols on Iran's pre-revolution flag that today show support for Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's former shah.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) We came to the conclusion that if we want to be free, we have to do this.
BOUSCAREN: The family put on extra layers of clothes. They thought it was likely that police would shoot rubber bullets or tear gas, and a little bit of padding might help. Instead, before the protest even started, the mother recalls, paramilitary forces, known as basijis, started riding motorcycles towards them.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) My son started running towards them. So I told my husband to follow him, and I was behind them.
BOUSCAREN: Then the basijis started to shoot. At first, it was pellets. The mother saw her son fall to the ground ahead of her and her husband. She fell on top of him as the officers got off their bikes and beat them with batons.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) His face was full of pellets.
BOUSCAREN: Somehow in the chaos, her brother-in-law arrived with a car. She says she pushed her son inside so he could get to a hospital. His injuries seemed more urgent. She stayed with her husband, Omid.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) People were opening the doors of their garages, bringing the wounded inside.
BOUSCAREN: In Tehran, the civil engineer on his motorbike had no idea what had happened in Fardis.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Speaking Persian).
BOUSCAREN: He was driving to another intersection, wearing his motorcycle helmet, when he heard the basijis start to chant.
UNIDENTIFIED BASIJIS: (Chanting in non-English language).
BOUSCAREN: Heydar heydar (ph), a religious chant that became a battle cry. The protesters around him started to run, and then they began to fall to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) They were running on both sides of me, and then some of them started slowing down. I couldn't understand what was happening.
BOUSCAREN: He says he couldn't see through his helmet.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) The people who were slowing down - I thought they were getting tired or something, but they were dying. They were taking their last breaths. And I had no idea.
BOUSCAREN: All around him was the metallic smell of blood.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) It was like an apocalypse.
BOUSCAREN: In social media videos from January 8 and 9, you can see Basij forces stationed on the tops of buildings shooting down into crowds...
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
BOUSCAREN: ...In Tehran, Mashhad, Kermanshah - all of them around the same time of night, 8 p.m.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) There were snipers, and the location that the snipers shot from were similar. The way people were shot was the same.
BOUSCAREN: But the mother in Fardis says she didn't know that as she and a group of protesters rushed her husband to the clinic of a doctor she knew.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) They put me in a locked room. They knew the Basij would arrest me.
BOUSCAREN: Gently, the doctor told her that her husband, Omid, was dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) I kept trying to wake him. I kept shaking his face.
BOUSCAREN: It wasn't until the next day when she learned that her son, Armin, had also been shot and killed when the car taking him to the hospital came under fire. Her brother-in-law, Amir, died, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) He was shot in the throat.
BOUSCAREN: Her son, Armin, was 19 years old. He had just gotten into a program to study electrical engineering. Across the country, everyone seemed to have lost someone. The civil engineer on the motorbike says he gathered with friends the next day on street corners. Because the government had blocked the internet, that was the only way to learn who had died. He counted 10 friends among the dead and missing.
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: (Through interpreter) But we thought these things had only happened to us, to our circle of people. But when the internet was restored, that's when we realized that it was systematic.
BOUSCAREN: The mother in Fardis buried her husband and son three days later. For two months, Basij forces stood outside her home. When she made phone calls, she'd hear a click and realize the line was tapped.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) I learned how not to pay attention. In the beginning, it was scarier. But then I thought about all the other families. If they're watching me, they aren't watching them, and at some point, they'll just get tired.
BOUSCAREN: But today, there are few ways to seek justice. Speaking out feels like the only thing she can do.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Through interpreter) I just want the world that sees these crimes and doesn't do anything to hear us. They are continuing to execute people who protested. My kid is gone, but so many still need to be protected.
BOUSCAREN: She says she spent the past months visiting their graves, where she keeps promising them, she will tell the world their names. Durrie Bouscaren, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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