Photo Credit to Iran Human Rights Monitor: The photos of some of the 1500 martyrs during the Iran Protests, in November 2019.

On December 15, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) announced that more than 1500 people were reported killed during the five-day uprising that began on November 15 in Iran.

The protests began following a two-fold rise in fuel prices announced by the government. Protesters soon changed slogans to anti-regime ones asking for regime change. Following the direct interference of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, suppressive forces fired directly on the protesting crowds, and in places like the south-western city of Mahshahr, they even used armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns to crush the uprising.

MEK IRAN was the main source for providing exact figures concerning the number of victims, with the latest figure amounting to 1500 killed and several thousand wounded. According to MEK Iran, more than 12000 protesters remain in custody to this day.

Despite confirmation of the figures by no less than the US special representative for Iran Brian Hook, who confirmed that more than a thousand people may have perished in the bloody repression, other sources including Human Rights groups remained cautious. Amnesty International confirmed that 304 people have been killed, while MEK Iran announced more than 601 names with no less than 200 photographs of those killed.

In a December 23 long story, Reuters confirmed, with sources close to the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, that 1500 had been killed during the brutal suppression of the public protests, on direct orders from Khamenei. The agency, however, did not mention that the figure was announced, eight days earlier, by MEK IRAN.

But official Iranian regime’s newspapers did the homework for Reuters. A quick search among Farsi newspapers and websites under regime control produces a list of more than a hundred official news outlets saying that Reuters has used MEK Iran’s information on the number of people killed during the uprising.

“It is not without ample reason that MEK Iran claims to be the most effective force in Iran in directing and organizing street protests against the regime,” said Hamid Baidi-Nejad, Iranian ambassador to the UK, to the official IRNA news agency.

Fars news agency, a known mouthpiece for the suppressive IRGC, qualified Reuters’ article as “fake news first announced by the leader of the MEK Iran on the number of November’ riots’ victims.”

The same agency wrote that “despite an article in the Reuters’ code of conduct that implies that news should be quoted with the full name of sources revealed, the agency has ignored all principles in diffusing news spread by MEK Iran.”

In its story, Reuters wrote: “About 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.”

Daneshjoo news agency seemed more worried, in reminding that “we live in a time when news can bring regimes to the verge of downfall and then take them back.”

The agency did not mention that what can actually bring the regime close to its end is the number of people protesting against it and demanding its downfall with little fear, even when they are being shot with all sorts of weapons.

Nationwide demonstrations are supposed to take place Thursday, forty days after the mass killings according to religious and national traditions implying commemoration of the dead forty days after their demise.

In fact, a historical precedent dating to the Shah’s last months haunts the mullahs, when big demonstrations against the monarchy were repeated every forty days leading to the total dismantling of the regime.