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LAST UPDATE | 2 hrs ago
THE NUMBER OF people killed in a crackdown on protests in Iran has been confirmed as 734, including nine people under the age of 18, a human rights group has said – but claim the actual death toll is likely in the thousands.
“The figures we publish are based on information received from fewer than half of the country’s provinces and fewer than 10 percent of Iran’s hospitals. The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” the director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
The updated death toll comes as Trump said Iranians should continue nationwide protests and take over the country’s institutions.
“Iranian Patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.
“I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. Help is on its way.”
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, signed off with “MIGA” – “Make Iran Great Again.”
The president did not specify what form the promised “help” would take, in a message that appeared to back toppling the government in the Islamic Republic – marking a change in the US stance from one day ago.
Yesterday, his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that a channel for diplomacy with Tehran remained open, saying that Iran was taking a “far different tone” in private discussions with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Iranian authorities insist they have regained control after successive nights of mass protests that have posed one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution ousted the shah.
But rights groups accuse the government of using live fire against protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now lasted more than four days.
International pressure on Iran is mounting as the death toll from the government crackdown on protests rises.
Trump announced a 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen also said further sanctions for Iran are possible.
“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying. I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and continued restriction of freedom,” von der Leyen said in a post on X.
“The European Union has already listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety under its human rights sanctions regime. Further sanctions on those responsible for the repression will be swiftly proposed.”
“We stand with the people of Iran who are bravely marching for their liberty.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said that she is in contact with her counterparts across Europe to discuss sanctions against Iran.
“We need to take it day by day,” McEntee told reporters during a visit to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt today.
“It’s hard to decipher what’s real and what’s not these days, because it is very difficult,” McEntee said, “but what’s very clear is that there have been mass killings, and we have to act, and we have to find a way to act that will not do more harm.”
Britain will also seek further sanctions on Iran and has summoned Tehran’s ambassador in London “to answer for the horrific reports”, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said today.
France, Spain and Germany said they have summoned their country’s respective Iranian ambassador. Finland and Denmark also summoned Iran’s representatives to their countries.
The United Nations rights chief voiced horror at the mounting violence directed at protesters across Iran.
“The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,” Volker Turk said in a statement, decrying the authorities’ decision “to inflict brutal force to repress legitimate demands for change”.
Overall, the EU has voiced support for the protesters and yesterday said it was looking at imposing additional sanctions on Iran over the repression of demonstrations.
The European Parliament also announced it had banned all Iranian diplomats and representatives from the assembly’s premises.
Tehran ally Russia, for its part, slammed what it called attempts by “foreign powers” to interfere in Iran, state media reported, in Moscow’s first reaction to the protests.
Meanwhile, Iran’s government claimed that the government ordered a now more than four-day shutdown of the internet because “terrorist operations” began during the protests.
Rights groups accuse the Islamic republic of cutting the internet to mask a crackdown that they say has left hundreds, and potentially even more, people dead.
Sparked by economic grievances, the nationwide protests have grown into one of the biggest challenges yet to the theocratic system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution ousted the shah.
Iranian authorities have blamed foreign interference for stoking the unrest and staged their own nationwide counter-rallies.
Addressing a blackout that has sparked an international outcry, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera:
The government was in dialogue with the protesters. The internet was cut only after we confronted terrorist operations and realised orders were coming from outside the country.
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 648 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely much higher — “according to some estimates more than 6,000″.
The internet shutdown has made it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports”, IHR said, adding that an estimated 10,000 people had been arrested.
With reporting by Eimer McAuley and © AFP 2026
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