How Anger Erupted as Iranians Buried Protest Victims

This is the voice of Kiarash, speaking from Germany after visiting his family in Iran. He’s describing what he saw at the largest cemetery in the Iranian capital amid a bloody crackdown on antigovernment protests. What began as anger over economic hardship grew into open defiance of the country’s authoritarian clerical rule. As the unrest spread, the government largely cut Iran off from the rest of the world. But some footage has trickled out, exposing the brutality of the regime’s crackdown. Kiarash has asked to be identified only by his first name to protect his family. On the 10th of January, Kiarash attended the burial of a family friend, who he said was killed by a bullet to the neck during the protests. There, he says he saw trucks unloading bodies into warehouses already stacked with corpses. As more bodies arrived, workers dumped them onto the ground, angering the crowd. There are no images of the mishandling of bodies at the cemetery as described by Kiarash. He said guards prevented him and others from filming with their phones, but The New York Times spoke to another person whose relatives saw similar scenes at that cemetery the next day. Around that time, footage began to emerge from a morgue just a mile away, showing devastated families unzipping rows of body bags to find their relatives. Distressed by what he witnessed, Kiarash said he joined protesters that evening, narrowly escaping death when they were met with gunfire. The 44-year-old said what he saw in Iran convinced him of the need for change.