Since the beginning of the 2025–2026 Iranian protests, the government of Iran has perpetrated widespread massacres of civilians, deploying both its own security forces and also imported foreign militias to suppress widespread public dissent across the country. As of 25 January 2026, the total death toll estimates ranged from 7,007 people to upwards of ~36,500 people, including 209 government-affiliated military and non-military personnel, making these among the largest massacres in the modern history of Iran.

Iranian authorities have supposedly imposed a near-total internet shutdown as part of their crackdown on the protests, restricting communication inside the country and limiting the flow of information about the killings to the outside world. On 12 January 2026, Esmaeil Baghayi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that security forces had directly shot at protesters.

On 25 January, Time reported that a specific list included 30,304 protest-related deaths registered in civilian hospitals for 8 and 9 January alone. The same day, Iran International estimated the total number of deaths at ~36,500. On 28 January, The Guardian reported that the death toll could be more than 30,000, and that less than 10% of deaths may have been officially registered. AP News reported that the government's overwhelming use of violence had caused despair among the Iranian public and had given rise to hopes among some citizens for an American attack. Several scholars have argued that the Iranian government now faces a fragile state that could lead to its demise.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has been described as the mastermind of the massacres, according to former Iranian government officials, while the crackdown was initiated in pursuit of orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior officials to use live fire on protesters; Khamenei himself had ordered "to crush the protests by any means necessary". As of 19 January 2026, the Iranian government had reasserted control over the protests. Worldwide support protests took place on 14 February, and protest waves restarted in western Iran on 16 February and in universities on 21 February.

Khamenei acknowledged that "thousands of people" had been killed during the protests, blaming American president Donald Trump for the massacre and calling all protesters "rioters and terrorists" affiliated with the United States and Israel. The Iranian government put the death toll at 3,117, stating that 2,447 were civilians and security forces, and the rest were "terrorists". The government published an official list of 2,986 victims. Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) described the official list as mostly unverifiable due to the lack of sufficient identifying details. Iran International stated on 3 February that it had its own confirmed list of 6,634 deaths, of which less than 100 were on the official list. HRANA published a full report on 23 February 2026, including a detailed named list of 7,007 deaths