While various reactionary and imperialist forces continue to exploit the situation⁽¹⁾, the latest protests in Iran have been drowned in blood. Current estimates of the death toll vary from at least 3,000 to over 30,000.⁽²⁾ Tens of thousands more have been injured or arrested. We are yet to find out the real scale of the violence.

Now, as the Internet blockade eases up, more stories emerge from workers’ organisations in Iran about the bloody repression unleashed by the regime. Here we publish just some of them in English.

A Record of Crimes in Medical Centers!

The month of January became a horrifying period for nurses and medical staff, and indeed for all the people of Iran.

The bloody events and nationwide street massacres turned hospitals and medical centres into a battleground between atrocity and humanity.

January 2026 is a document of organised crime, a flagrant violation of the sanctity of hospitals, aimed at breaking all international standards.

Injured people, who sought refuge in hospitals to save their lives were, in front of the horrified eyes of nurses and medical staff, brutally murdered or abducted from hospital beds.

Ambulances, instead of transporting and protecting the wounded, were used to transport repressive forces, or, if they were carrying the injured, were riddled with gunfire.

All professional and humanitarian standards in the medical field were shattered, and medical facilities were turned into scenes of war and human slaughter.

Repressive forces placed us, the nurses and medical staff, in appalling conditions and threatened and arrested us for carrying out our professional and humanitarian duties towards the wounded.

We, the nurses and medical staff, have always been by the people's side in all critical situations, wholeheartedly carrying out our professional and humanitarian duties.

Doctors and nurses who shared their telephone numbers before the internet was cut, in order to attend to the wounded, are now facing arrests and the opening of criminal cases.

Doctors and nurses rushed to help the wounded, whether in the streets and medical centres or in their own homes, and in doing so, they themselves were killed.

We, the nurses and healthcare staff who have been protesting our living and working conditions for years, and whose protests have been met with repression, threats, dismissals, and the opening of disciplinary cases, are in solidarity and share the same fate as the people's protests in the streets. Our freedom depends on the direct will of the people, free from any form of domination.

The Council for Coordination of Nurses' Protests honours the memory of all those who lost their lives in this horrific massacre and salutes all the nurses and healthcare staff who stood firm to the very end to save the lives of the wounded.

All detained nurses and healthcare staff must be released immediately, and the fabrications of charges against them must cease. All those who ordered and carried out the killings and abductions of the wounded, and the crimes committed within the confines of medical treatment and hospitals, must be brought to trial.

We, the nurses and healthcare staff, declare our solidarity with all the wounded who require medical assistance, whether in their homes or in healthcare centres. We stand united with the people who are suffering from poverty, soaring prices, and the economic crisis, and we demand justice for the humanity that has been slaughtered within our healthcare facilities and for the destruction of the sanctity of patients and the wounded.

Unity and solidarity are the key to our victory!
Let us unite today for a better tomorrow!

Down with Servitude, Long Live Life!

We are living through difficult days. The shadow of death still hangs over us, and many of our lives have been taken. We console ourselves; for the lives lost, for the cries of mothers and fathers, for the stunned brothers and sisters searching for their loved ones among the withered flowers.

Our hearts are heavy, our voices choked with grief, and we look in disbelief at what has happened. Precious souls who have gone, believe that life is our right.

We oppose all that considers itself superior to others;
We oppose servitude;
We oppose poverty;
We oppose discrimination.
We stand against inequality, oppression and exploitation, against repression, prison, execution and tyranny.

What do we want? Is it a crime to want freedom and the general welfare of all?
Is it a crime to want free healthcare?
Is it a crime to want free and universal education?
Is it a crime to want the right to work?
Is having decent housing a crime?
Is it a crime to have a society where men and women live free, side by side, and enjoy equal rights?

Is it a crime to say that we are all human beings and that blessings and wealth should not be in the hands of a select few?
Is it a crime to have an opinion and a belief?

We have the right to live, and no one has the right to make us their slave.
The memory of our departed loved ones is sacred.
Down with servitude, long live life.
Our desire is not servitude.
Our desire is life.

Statement of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company Condemning the Massacre of Protesting People

The oppressed people of our country have once again been plunged into mourning for their children. This time, the massacre of those protesting the economic and social policies of the Islamic Republic is even more widespread and horrific than the street killings of the 1980s, as well as the crimes of December 2017, November 2019, and September 2022. The immense shock that has gripped society is not one of surprise, for we have always known the extent of the cruelty and savagery of the regime's repressive forces; rather, it is because the rulers, without any consideration, decided to carry out a massacre of thousands of this country's children. This is further proof of the definitive end of any hope for regime change, even for the most optimistic and deluded.

The regime has once again shown that it holds no value for the lives of the people and our children. How can such a mass killing be committed, only for the bodies of the victims to be cruelly and inhumanely displayed for all to see? Can such a regime have the slightest legitimacy in the minds of the people?

Following the publication of the Syndicate’s statement entitled Support for the People’s Just Struggle, Advancing Toward Real Freedom and Equality, Not a Return to the Past,⁽³⁾ we, like more than 93 million people in the country, were deprived of access to the Internet and other communication tools; an organised deprivation that continued until recent days and even now communications are not entirely reliable. Nevertheless, the Syndicate continues to emphasise the fundamental and inviolable principle that the true liberation of the Iranian people is only possible through the collective leadership and the conscious, organised, and independent participation of the entire working class and other oppressed strata within the country, and not through the military intervention of the United States and Israel, or other power-hungry foreign governments and their affiliated and supportive forces.

The Syndicate, whilst strongly condemning the mass slaughter of the country's deprived people, sincerely extends its condolences to the families and loved ones of the martyrs of the December uprising, and demands the immediate and unconditional release of all detainees.

Every day, news of executions reaches our ears. Let the regime know that not even the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s could prevent the continuation of the people's quest for justice and their demands for freedom and equality. Today's mass killings and executions, in a society that is far more widespread, aware, and diverse, will not only be incapable of curbing the protests and deep social discontent, but will also add to the public's fury. The least costly path for the people and the country is for all of you to step aside immediately and for the machinery of the country's killing, repression, and destruction to be halted at once.

Long live freedom, equality and popular solidarity!
The solution for workers and toilers is unity and organisation!

Fifty Names, Fifty Unfinished Lives; Names That Will Not be Forgotten

Fifty names,⁽⁴⁾
Fifty unfinished lives,
and fifty empty seats
that silently scream in the classrooms every day.

These are the empty seats of children whose futures were stolen before they had even begun. For families who have brought grief home, and for teachers who are the silent witnesses to this imposed absence, building collective resistance each day with the wound of empty desks.

We write these names
For the mothers and fathers who cry out for justice;
For the teachers who still believe in life, education, and human dignity;
For the benches that remained empty
So that we do not forget that these deaths were no accident.

Their memory is honoured and enduring.

Notes:

(1) Iran: Workers Face Enemies on All Sides

(2) theguardian.com

(3) Translated in the article linked in the first footnote. See also Dispatches from the Uprising in Iran for statements from other workers’ organisations.

(4) Estimated number of children killed so far during the repression.