This story contains references to distressing content.
Cut off from the world by an internet blackout, Amirhossein spent two weeks protesting on the streets of Iran, witnessing scenes of brutality he says he had never seen before.
In a voice note sent to SBS News, he described "madness" on the streets of Tehran.
"I saw it with my own eyes," the human rights activist said.
"A wave of people had taken to the streets, because of international pressure, and because the situation was deeply against the Islamic Republic.
"The security forces had descended into madness, firing at everything out of fear for their own lives. They no longer cared whether it was a woman, a man, or a child."
The protester's name has been changed because of potential safety concerns.
He said he wanted to be referred to as Amirhossein, to honour a young protester who was killed in the recent protest movement.
'Turned into a purge'
The internet has been shut off in Iran since Friday morning AEDT, but some Iranians, like Amirhossein, are finding ways to get around the blackout, such as connecting to Starlink's satellite service to share information about what is happening in the country.
"What we witnessed on the streets was truly unprecedented. I saw a lot of gunfire, tear gas being fired, people being brutally beaten," he said.
"The people's only weapons were slogans and stones.
"The Islamic Republic has used maximum violence every time ... This is nothing new. It just broke the record this time."
The ongoing protests in Iran were triggered by economic grievances about two weeks ago, but have evolved into an anti-regime movement — with protesters reportedly chanting slogans such as "Death to the dictator", referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Protest movements have a long history in Iran, but human rights groups say the death toll amid this crackdown is unprecedented, warning it could be much higher than reported, with the internet blackout hindering efforts to verify reports.
Mina Khani, a member of Hengaw, an Iranian Kurdish organisation documenting human rights violations in Iran, told SBS News: "The internet has been completely shut down for several days, and communication is heavily restricted. Making it very difficult to get verified information for us."
United States-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) has confirmed the deaths of at least 2,615 people in Iran, which includes 13 children. At least 153 members of security forces and government supporters have also lost their lives, according to the organisation.
SBS News could not independently verify the number of people who have died during the protests.
SBS News has contacted the Iranian embassy for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
There are also reports of people unable to access hospitals and medical services due to overwhelmed resources, as well as a fear of security forces who are reportedly stationed there.
Amirhossein said figures relating to the number of people killed are inaccurate, as "a large part of these dead and wounded are now hiding in their homes. We may have seen a third of the disaster".
He said the crackdown reached its peak over the weekend.
"It turned into a purge. Anyone who came out onto the streets was killed by snipers, from buildings, and mercilessly in the streets," he said.
According to Hengaw, the recent crackdown on the protests "contains clear and multiple elements of crimes against humanity".
"[With] the massive killing, attacking hospitals, [and] targeting and killing children, we are sure about that, that this is a crime against humanity and this is intentional," Khani said.
SBS was not able to independently verify claims of indiscriminate killing or crimes against humanity.
US President Donald Trump told reporters he has been told that reported killings in the Iranian regime's crackdown on the protests were subsiding, and that he believes there is currently no plan for large-scale executions.
When asked who told him that the killings had stopped, Trump described them as "very important sources on the other side".
Trump did not rule out potential US military action, saying "we are going to watch what the process is" before noting that his administration had received a "very good statement" from Iran.
'They were not afraid'
Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has denied thousands being killed, saying "hundreds" died in protests, without providing an exact number.
Several Iranian officials have labelled the protesters as "terrorists" and "rioters", and during the initial days of the protests, Khamenei said "rioters should be put in their place".
Amirhossein, who has been involved in multiple protests in Iran over the past few decades, said he still feels compelled to go to the streets.
But he's worried especially about younger protesters.
"Being out on the streets was more frightening for us than for the young people," he said.
"They went out full of passion, smiling, shouting, chanting their demands, and they were killed [while] our legs were shaking.
"Those young people were so full of desire and passion that they were not afraid. They were killed with their smiles and are now buried."
According to Human Rights Watch Australia director Daniela Gavshon, there are grave fears for those detained.
"They are being accused by authorities of being 'enemies of God', which in Iran carries the death penalty," she told SBS News.
At least 18,470 individuals have been arrested during the protests, according to HRANA. Among them is Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old protester who has been sentenced to execution. His face has become one of the symbols of resistance among activists.
Hengaw has reported that authorities had told Soltani's family that the death sentence was final, while Araghchi has said that "there is no plan for hanging".
'Regime in a bad spot'
Dara Conduit, a political science lecturer at Melbourne University, said the "regime is in a bad spot", with these protests forming part of a raft of recent challenges to the Islamic Republic's regime leadership.
"Developments internationally over the last couple of years have made it feel extremely vulnerable," he told SBS News.
"Things such as the assassination of the chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Qasem Soleimani, to the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, the catastrophic weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and also the Iran-Israel war last year, which showed just how ill-prepared Iran was to stand up to Israel.
"The Iranian regime has been trading on its strength and its capacity to stand up for Israel for its entire lifetime, and within the space of a few days, it became very clear that actually Israel had deeply penetrated Iran and … no-one in the regime was safe."
Iran has a long history of protest movements, with several triggered by different issues since the 1979 revolution.
"I think we need to be very clear that this is not a protest movement that erupted out of nowhere," Conduit said.
"It's one that's really deeply rooted in Iranian society, and these grievances are very real and very widely felt."
Iranian authorities have accused the US and Israel of fomenting the unrest, carried out by people it calls "armed terrorists".
The unrest on such a scale caught the authorities off guard at a vulnerable time, but it doesn't appear that the government faces imminent collapse, and its security apparatus still appears to be in control, one Western official told Reuters.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian — an elected figure whose power is subordinate to that of Iran's supreme leader — told a cabinet meeting that as long as the government had popular support, "all the enemies' efforts against the country will come to nothing", Reuters reported.
'As if the whole city poured into the streets'
In 18 days, the protests reached 187 cities across the country with 617 protest gatherings, according to HRANA.
For Amirhossein, these protests felt different.
"This time, all the women, children, old and young, all said together that once and for all, let's all come out into the streets," he said.
"Even those who couldn't come out into the streets were chanting slogans from their windows and supporting each other, and it was as if the whole city had poured out into the streets.
"It means people who've been pushed to the very edge have nothing left to lose, and they're saying: 'You only die once, you only mourn once', so let's take to the streets again."
While there have been fewer reports of protests in recent days, amid what Amirhossein calls a "horrifying crackdown" and an internet blackout, he's holding onto hope for change.
"If they throw someone to the bottom of a well, there's still hope they might be rescued from there.
"This is human nature. We have no other way. What else can we do? Die by mass suicide?
"We're forced to go on. We're forced to hold on to hope for the future."
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