Iran International
Tehran commentariat and figures close to the establishment are increasingly accusing hardliners and state television of deepening divisions and undermining national unity as the country faces war, economic strain and growing public anxiety.
The US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the ensuing regional conflagration have aggravated economic troubles to the point that President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned of widespread unrest.
Media close to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has sought to position himself as a pragmatist since the death of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been among the most vocal critics.
On Thursday, Khorasan newspaper, one of the outlets closest to Ghalibaf, blasted the state broadcaster and several ultraconservative lawmakers for promoting rhetoric that risked “deepening divisions and polarizing the public” at a time of war.
The paper singled out hardline MP Ali Khezrian, who it said had received nearly four hours of airtime in less than a week to accuse state officials of serving foreign interests and challenge the authority of the Foreign Ministry and the Supreme National Security Council.
In a counter-accusation, Khorasan alleged that Khezrian had posted a video of a petrochemical facility in Lorestan Province, effectively “updating Israel and the United States’ list of potential sites to strike.”
The paper also accused Khezrian of presenting his own views as those of Iran’s new leader, adding that if a politician from another faction had done so, they would likely have been arrested by security forces.
Meanwhile, conservative figure and former Resalat editor Mohammad Kazem Anbarlui warned in a May 14 interview with ISNA that hardliners were creating dangerous political polarization by exploiting issues such as hijab enforcement and negotiations with the United States.
On the same day, Khabar Online reported that during a live broadcast on Channel 3, a reporter asked demonstrators: “Which political figures were meaner than the meanest animals?” Respondents named politicians associated with rivals of the hardline camp.
The outlet argued that hardliners were increasingly using state television to erode national cohesion. Since the start of the war, it wrote, the broadcaster had selectively featured hardline commentators and public figures.
Instead of offering expert analysis, Khabar Online wrote, the organization was increasingly relying on controversial guests and sensationalist presenters, pushing it “off its professional path” and disrupting “public order and social calm.”
The national broadcaster now resembled “the exclusive domain of hardliners,” it said — a space where they were allowed to undermine decisions of the Supreme National Security Council and state authority.
Even the IRGC-linked Javan newspaper acknowledged the growing concern.
“When people are constantly led to believe that state officials are incompetent, infiltrated, or intimidated, the result is growing pessimism, distrust, and the erosion of national cohesion,” the paper warned in a commentary published the same day.
“A society whose trust has been damaged” becomes more vulnerable to external crises and adversaries’ psychological operations, it added.
“The outcome,” Javan concluded, “is either public anger or despair.”
As security forces opened fire around Haft Hoz and Tehranpars, two protest flashpoints in east Tehran, the wounded and the dead were carried to Alghadir hospital, where images and videos later captured one of the clearest records of the January massacre.
Some bodies were wrapped in blankets or plastic. Others were placed in garbage bags or left on top of one another.
After the images spread online, Hossein Kermanpour, the Health Ministry’s public relations chief, confirmed they were real. He said about 150 wounded people and 36 bodies were brought to Alghadir on January 8, while the morgue could hold only five bodies. The images, he said, were “accurate.”
The scenes formed one fragment of the wider January massacre, in which more than 40,000 people were killed in two days as the Islamic Republic moved to crush a nationwide uprising.
Iran International has identified and verified nine of the people whose bodies were taken to Alghadir or whose final hours passed through the hospital. Among them were a 17-year-old student, a 19-year-old woman, a father, a worker, a young man trying to build a future, and a protester shot while helping a wounded girl.
A witness said there were so many dead inside Alghadir that bodies were placed on top of each other. Security forces outside threatened to burn the hospital with everyone inside if the doors were not opened, while relatives of the wounded tried to block their entry.
A wounded protester said officers later entered, hit a nurse on the head with a baton and took several people away. Doctors hid some of the wounded in a storage room. “We kept hearing gunfire,” the protester said. “It sounded like coup de grace shots being fired at the wounded.”
Medical staff said body bags ran out, some of the dead were put in garbage bags, two vans came in the morning and took bodies away, and the corridors, elevators and courtyard were covered in blood as people carried the wounded in blankets toward surgery.
A nurse said January 9 was worse than the previous night. Security forces fired pellets and threatened those trying to help the wounded in the street, she said. One girl had been hit in the eye, one person had been shot in the heart and another had both legs torn apart. “I did not know who to help first,” she said.
Witnesses said security forces and Basij members set up checkpoints around Haft Hoz and near Sarallah Mosque, where the Zakereen Basij base is located. Armed forces were stationed on four sides of the square, they said, and shots were fired even inside the hospital grounds.
A source said many of the wounded had come from around Rashid police station in Tehranpars. Some who died after being taken to surgery were removed through the rear door of the operating room by IRGC and Basij forces, while relatives waited on the other side for news.
One hospital worker described a girl with long hair under a cloth, her head severed and her body missing. A staff member who saw the scene could not return to work for two days, the source said. Another witness said an elderly hospital guard suffered a fatal heart attack after seeing a headless body.
Several sources said security forces later reviewed Alghadir’s security cameras to control records of who had entered the hospital and how the wounded and dead had been moved.
But behind the scenes from Alghadir were individual lives that could still be traced. Families searched corridors, storage rooms, courtyards and morgues for those who had disappeared into the chaos of those two nights. Iran International has identified and verified nine of them.
Aida Aghili, born on June 23, 1991, joined the uprising in Haft Hoz on January 8. While chanting slogans, she was shot twice in the head at close range and killed.
Before leaving, she hugged her mother and told her what should be done with her belongings if she did not return.
Security bodies tried to bury her in the Behesht Zahra cemetery section used for executed prisoners, but her family resisted. She was buried beside her grandmother on January 11.
On her birthday, Aida had written on Instagram of stress “inside my bones,” “a war in my soul and my homeland,” and a freedom she still believed would come.
Hossein Heidari, 50, was killed in Haft Hoz on January 8, two days before his birthday. He was shot in the back of the head and the side.
Before joining the protests, he had written: “Your place is on the street; every night until freedom, we will not sit down for a moment.”
His family first searched for him at Ansari hospital, where they found no trace of him. They later found his body in Alghadir’s back courtyard, wrapped in a blue blanket.
Hossein loved Esteghlal, the Tehran football club known as the Blues.
His family identified him by his boots, a birthday gift from his daughter. Relatives described him as joyful and fond of laughter. He was buried on January 12 under security restrictions.
Gholamreza Mozhdehi, 52, was wounded during night protests in Tehranpars on January 8 and taken to hospital while still showing signs of life, witnesses said.
Security agents prevented him from receiving medical help. Hours later, his body was found in Alghadir’s basement, in an area used for hospital waste, beside other bodies.
He had a live bullet wound to the neck, pellet injuries to the head, and wounds from knives or machetes. Married with two children, he had joined the protests in solidarity with others.
Mohsen Ghahremanpour was 22 and from Malayer, Hamadan province. On January 8 in Tehranpars, security forces shot him in the head and eye from about one meter away.
People took him to Alghadir, where he died. His body was later found in the hospital’s back courtyard.
Relatives said the family faced threats and financial pressure, including a demand for 3.5 billion rials, about $1,945, to release his body.
Iran International has documented similar cases in which authorities demanded money from families or pressured them to sign papers identifying killed protesters as members of the Basij, the IRGC’s paramilitary force, turning the dead into evidence for the Islamic Republic’s own account of the crackdown.
Under that pressure, Mohsen was buried in silence as a Basij member.
He had worked as a laborer and had recently begun container construction.
Setareh Rafiei was killed in Tehranpars on January 8. She had been shot twice with live rounds, once in the heart and once in the head.
Her family later found her body in a storage area at Alghadir, among many others left there after the morgue filled.
Pouya Derakhshan was 17 and a student. On January 8, he was near the Haft Hoz metro station with friends when security forces attacked protesters.
Sources said he was beaten on the head with batons, then shot in the heart. People called an ambulance and he was taken to Alghadir, where doctors found he had no pulse.
After his body was transferred to Kahrizak morgue, a wrong identification code left him missing among the dead.
Relatives had to open the covers of several bodies before identifying him at the washing facility in Behesht Zahra cemetery. He was buried on January 10 in section 326 under security measures.
Sahar Bayat was killed in the evening of January 8 while returning from protests with her husband and friends.
Sources said a live round hit her from behind and she died at the scene.
Her body was first taken to Alghadir, then transferred to Kahrizak. Her husband spent one night at Alghadir and three nights at Kahrizak waiting for her body to be released.
Sources said authorities refused to hand over the body until money was paid. Relatives were also forced to sign pledges that no slogans would be chanted at the funeral. Sahar was buried in Tuyserkan, Hamadan province.
Amir Hossein Emamjomeh was 29 and the father of a daughter. He was killed during the January 8 protests in Tehranpars after being shot with a live round.
Sources said he was in the crowd with his wife when he was targeted by a sniper, apparently because of the white hat he was wearing. The bullet struck near his nose.
People took him to Alghadir, but he died from his injuries.
On January 9, he was on Tavousi Street in Nezamabad when he went to help a wounded girl. He was shot directly in the head and killed.
Sources said people took him to Alghadir, but security agents did not allow treatment. His body was not handed over to his family.
Mohammad had repeatedly helped wounded protesters, taking some into homes to bandage their wounds.
In his final moments, he was again moving toward someone who had been shot.
People who knew him described him as kind, athletic and fond of animals.
His fortieth-day memorial was held on what would have been his birthday.
The nine cases verified by Iran International are not a full list of those taken to Alghadir. They are names recovered from one hospital, in one part of Tehran, over two nights of the crackdown.
The country is full of such cases.
