alt Hacker NewsThat's not what you say it is. It is an estimate from UNHRC, which has a wide range. The estimate also seems to be for all dead, including counter protesters and government officers. Verification of any kind is in short supply.
It also does nothing to address the Iranian government's claim - strongly supported by US and Israel's public statements(!) that it's a foreign coup attempt rather than peaceful protests.
"Foreign coup attempt" is an extraordinary claim that is not backed by publicly available evidence. Indeed, it's not even backed by the statements by Iranian government officials, who are on record upholding the killings [1]. Furthermore, Iranian Ministry of Health officials have upheld these estimates of the death count. Eyewitness accounts uphold the fact that the Iranian government has perpetrated mass killings of protestors [2].
It is understandable that a person who distrusts the United States government would be led to believe the statements of a government in opposition to it. Indeed, the United States is engaged in an illegal war in which it is the aggressor. However, the statements of the Iranian government attributing protestor deaths to foreign-backed paramilitaries is not backed by any credible set of facts.
1. https://reliefweb.int/report/iran-islamic-republic/iran-deat...
2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/01/16/iran-growing-evidence-of...