Leaked Iran morgue photos show bloodied faces of protestors killed in crackdown

The BBC has claimed that it has been given hundreds of photos that show the bruised and bloodied faces of protestors killed in the Iran government’s crackdown. The versions released by the BBC, according to the broadcaster, have blurred faces due to the severity of their injuries. There are 326 faces including 18 women.

The images from a Tehran mortuary are being used by families to identify their loved ones. The BBC said many were “too disfigured to be identified”:

69 people had been labelled in Persian as John or Jane Doe, suggesting their identity was unknown when the photo was taken.

Only 28 of the images had name labels and 100 had their date of death recorded at 9 January:

 one of the deadliest nights for protesters in Tehran so far.

Victim’s ages range from 12 to 70. Families huddled into the mortuary to watch a slideshow of the victim’s faces. Arguably the most harrowing paragraphs in the BBC report claimed:

The slideshow lasted for hours, they said, adding that many of the victims’ injuries were so severe they could not be identified. One man’s face was so swollen his eyes were barely visible. Another man still had a breathing tube in his mouth, suggesting he died after receiving medical treatment.

Some victims were so badly injured that their families asked to see the pictures again and to zoom in on their faces to make sure it was really them, we were told. At other times people recognised their loved ones instantly and were seen collapsing to the floor, screaming.

Iran protestors: incredibly hard to verify

The BBC, to its credit, acknowledged that verification is incredibly difficult in Iran:

The leaked photos provide a small snapshot of the thousands believed to have been killed at the hands of the Iranian state.

BBC Verify has been tracking the spread of protests across Iran since they erupted in late December, but the near total internet blackout imposed by the authorities has made it extremely difficult to document the scale of the government’s violence against those who oppose it.

The organisation pointed out that:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly acknowledged several thousand people have been killed.

However, the Iranian leader:

blamed the US, Israel and those he described as “seditionists”.

Chaos, confusion and bad faith

Some have written off the entire rebellion as simply a CIA and/or Mossad operation. The reality, as ever, is far more complicated than the fever-dreams of a rump of terminally online Europe and North America-based ‘anti-imperialists’.

As the Canary wrote on 17 January:

Iran is currently in a state of near-revolution. The protests stem from massive spikes in the living costs. Iran is also subject to heavy sanctions by the US and its allies, including the UK.  The authorities may have killed and jailed thousands of protestors but an information blackout makes it hard to verify details.

That said, the US and Israel, to name just two, clearly have their own ambitions in Iran. Which is why it is essential anyone pronouncing on the matter is clear, accurate and cautious.:

The protests against costs of living are certainly legitimate. The clumsy and conspiratorial framing of them as simply a product of Western interference is inadequate.

Let’s have it right. The protests, and Iranians themselves:

exist in an imperial context. And it is almost certainly the case that outside forces are trying to capture Iranian’s anger to shape an outcome that favours western interests.

US figures have also intervened very publicly. In early January, former CIA chief Mike Pompeo posted on X that Mossad were on the streets too:

The Iranian regime is in trouble. Bringing in mercenaries is its last best hope.

Riots in dozens of cities and the Basij under siege — Mashed, Tehran, Zahedan. Next stop: Baluchistan.

47 years of this regime; POTUS 47. Coincidence?

Happy New Year to every Iranian in the…

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 2, 2026

It is hard to see what Pompeo’s aim was in publicly connecting the protests to foreign intelligence. If anything, Pompeo certainly, simply because of who he is, handed the Iranian government more of a reason to crackdown.

The CIA and Starlink

Drop Site News recently made the point that the legacy media was badly misfiring (shocker) on the nature and scope of covert US intervention:

The New York Times has reported that “a ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers pierced Iran’s digital barricades” and with the help of the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA-adjacent American funding mechanism, managed to build a transnational network that smuggled some 50,000 Starlink devices into Iran, which is about $40,000,000 of hardware for that “ragtag” band.

Interestingly, the interview with an anonymous Iranian protestor attached to the article cited here came under attack from the everything-is-a-CIA-operation crowd itself. That is despite the fact the article acknowledges, uh, covert Western intervention. Go figure.

In a tidal wave of misinformation, disinformation, and the competing ambitions of authoritarian states – that includes the US and Iran –  it is vital we operate with caution and avoid simplistic answers. Especially if we are trying to communicate these events to wide audiences.

Featured image via the Canary