BBC Verify Live: Verifying videos of clashes and casualties from Iran protests
- One video shows potentially 200 dead at Tehran mortuary, published at 15:23 GMT.
At least six videos have been published in the past few days showing the Tehran Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Center, but only one contains a date - 9 January.
The six-minute video filmed at the center has several edits. It cuts between several angles of the exterior of the center, with dozens of body bags and other figures in shrouds lying on the floor. Many people are seen crying. One person is helped up after collapsing on the floor.
One clip shows people standing around a screen, which cycles through several photos of faces of dead bodies.
Image source, X/@Vahid
Unlike the other videos we’ve seen from the center, this video does not film inside the warehouse, but laid outside it we count at least 21 body bags in a single shot.
Across the whole video, there appears to be 182 figures laid on the floor or on trolleys.
- Ten UK-sanctioned tankers sailing through English Channel, published at 14:52 GMT.
Kayleen Devlin, BBC Verify senior journalist.
Earlier we reported that we had identified two UK-sanctioned tankers sailing through the English Channel, including one - the White Condor I - falsely flying under the flag of Aruba.
We can now update that figure. BBC Verify has identified a total of ten tankers sanctioned by the UK which appear to be travelling through the Channel according to their AIS location data.
Of these ten tankers, four are carrying cargo, and three have Russian registration.
- Verifying videos showing rows of dead bodies in Iran, published at 14:32 GMT.
Merlyn Thomas, BBC Verify correspondent.
The US-based human rights group HRANA says nearly 500 protesters have been killed in Iran since protests began. Other activists say the true figure could be much higher.
Despite the government imposed internet blackout, several videos - believed to have been filmed on Friday - have emerged showing rows and rows of dead bodies in a mortuary in Tehran.
What appear to be friends and family members are seen walking through the rows to identify their loved ones.
We’ve blurred images from these videos because they’re too graphic to show, but by using the footage we’ve been able to count at least 180 bodies from just one mortuary.
- Ukraine claims attack on three Russian oil rigs in Caspian Sea, published at 14:29 GMT.
Emma Pengelly, BBC Verify journalist.
We've also been looking at claims that Ukraine’s special forces attacked three Russian oil rigs in the Caspian Sea over the weekend.
The infrastructure belongs to Lukoil, a major Russian oil corporation which helps support President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, according to the UK government.
We’ve been looking at the drone footage published by Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces on social media where several drones approach three different oil platforms.
One platform, named Vladimir Filanovsky and located about 60km off the coast of Astrakhan in Russia, is visible in satellite imagery captured on 25 December. Its structure is consistent with that seen in the drone footage.
Image source, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces / Telegram
The other rigs apparently struck are the V.I. Grayfer and Yuri Korchagin, but the drone clips cut out before impact and there are no recent satellite images from their reported locations to verify the attack or the extent of the damage.
Attacks on these offshore oil facilities have previously been reported and are part of Ukraine’s campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. On 11 December the Filanovsky platform was reportedly hit, on 15 December the Korchagin rig was reportedly struck and on 19 December there was a report of a drone attack on the V.I. Grayfer platform.
- Videos from mortuary show how deadly protests have become, published at 14:06 GMT.
Benedict Garman, Richard Irvine-Brown and Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Verify.
Several distressing videos have emerged over the weekend showing how deadly the protests in Iran have become.
One set of videos were filmed at a mortuary near the town of Kahrizak, the Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Center of Tehran Province, which is around 14 miles from Tehran. We matched the layout of the exterior of the building and the dimensions and structure of a warehouse and another building nearby to satellite images to verify the location.
Shots from outside these buildings show many body bags on trolleys, with hundreds of people gathered around them. One video shows the warehouse appearing full of both bags and people looking over them. We have assessed at least 50 body bags were seen in the clip.
Image source, X/@Vahid
One video from Sunday was published by the state broadcaster. It shows a reporter arriving at the site and inspecting body bags inside a windowless room inside the same warehouse while talking to grieving people.
Two of the videos BBC Verify found did not appear online before 10 January, although they could be filmed earlier.
- What has the UK government said about Iran’s IRGC?, published at 13:36 GMT.
Anthony Reuben, BBC Verify senior journalist.
Successive UK governments have been highly critical of the IRGC, with Conservative Foreign Secretary James Cleverly imposing sanctions on the organisation as a whole as well as individuals involved with it in 2022 and 2023.
But he stopped short of proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, telling MPs that it would mean that we could have no direct diplomatic relations with Iran.
The current Labour government commissioned a review from the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism and State Threats Legislation, Jonathan Hall, which was published last May and recommended the government should create a new terrorist designation that is more suited to state actors such as the IRGC.
The government has said it is committed to taking forward his proposals as soon as Parliamentary time allows.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle has said that legislation is needed because the law does not currently allow the IRGC to be proscribed.
- Calls for Iran’s IRGC to be proscribed by UK, published at 13:31 GMT.
Anthony Reuben, BBC Verify senior journalist.
There have been calls to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation following the latest deadly protests in the country.
Proscribing an organisation in the UK makes it a criminal offence to be a member of the group, support it or encourage other people to support it.
The IRGC was set up in the 1970s to defend Iran's Islamic revolution. It is now one of the most powerful military organisations in the Middle East, with links to armed groups across the region.
It has been designated as a terrorist organisation by several countries including the US in 2019, Canada in 2024 and Australia last year but not by the UK.
- Sanctioned tankers identified in the English channel, despite UK warnings, published at 13:17 GMT.
Kayleen Devlin, BBC Verify senior journalist.
BBC Verify has also been following sanctioned oil tankers travelling through the English Channel despite warnings by UK ministers that shadow fleet vessels can legally be stopped.
Of the three that we've identified, location data from vessel-tracking website MarineTraffic indicate that both the Ariadne and White Condor I are currently passing through the Channel.
Data for White Condor I, which is falsely flying the flag of the Caribbean island Aruba, put the tanker is to the south of Portsmouth, travelling east.
Before entering the Channel, the tanker stopped at a Brazilian port in mid-December, unloading its cargo. Prior to that, its tracking data indicates White Condor I had come from a port in Russia.
Tracking data for Ariadne, which is listed in Russia’s maritime registry, places the ship a short distance behind the White Condor, also sailing east.
MarineTraffic data indicates Ariadne is carrying cargo. It shows the tanker docked at a Russian port in mid-November, before travelling to Egypt and then heading north towards the Channel.
BBC Verify has also identified a third tanker, Anastasiia, sailing in the Channel. This vessel is sanctioned by the US, but not by the UK.
The Ministry of Defence has told BBC Verify that “deterring, disrupting and degrading the Russian shadow fleet is a priority”, but declined to comment on “specific operational planning or give a running commentary on live maritime traffic websites”.
- ‘Death to Khamenei’ chanted at Tehran funeral, published at 12:01 GMT.
Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Richard Irvine-Brown, BBC Persian and BBC Verify.
Among the many hundreds of videos of protests BBC Verify and BBC Persian have reviewed, one piece of footage shows a protest happening at a funeral in a Tehran mortuary.
This video, which first was first posted on Telegram at 8:45pm GMT (00:45am local time) on Sunday, shows mourners at the Behesht-Zahra Mortuary, 20km (12 miles) south of the centre of Tehran, crying for “bravery” while they carry a casket.
Image source, Telegram
Much of the video was blurred to anonymise people at the funeral but we have been able to verify the mortuary where the ceremony took place by matching images of it - particularly its atrium - to those on Google Photos. By reverse searching frames from the video we found no earlier copies cached online before Sunday.
Usually this ceremony would include calls of “There is no God but Allah”, but in this video we can hear chants of “death to Khamenei” - the Supreme Leader of Iran.
- Protesters gather in Tehran square during reported blackout, published at 11:39 GMT.
Ghoncheh Habibiazad, Richard Irvine-Brown and Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Persian and BBC Verify.
Verified video filmed during a reported electrical blackout in parts of Tehran shows hundreds of people waving their phones in Punak Square.
The blackout makes it hard to determine the location of the protest but some logos seen on nearby buildings helped us.
The internet shutdown has made it difficult to judge when the videos were filmed. This video did not appear publicly online before Saturday, but two videos we discovered on Sunday helped us verify it.
Image source, Telegram
The first, posted at 15:11 GMT (19:11 in Tehran), shows people at the southeast corner of Punak Square, claiming to be filmed around an hour after dark in Tehran that day but warning of a 40-minute delay in uploading video using Starlink, a satellite-enabled internet service, to circumvent restrictions.
The second, posted 27 minutes later, shows hundreds in the square, cheering and clapping, and with more lights on than in Saturday’s video.
In both instances, we could quickly assess these were among the earliest, maybe the first, copies of the videos publicly online. The Iranian government has threatened to jam Starlink capabilities and we are trying to assess to what extent it is being used in Iran.
- Video shows chaotic scene on Iran highway, published at 10:50 GMT.
Richard Irvine-Brown, BBC Verify journalist.
We’re looking into footage from Iran showing clashes during anti-government protests in Iran.
One video which emerged over the weekend shows protesters who have set up barricades and lit fires on Vakil Abad Highway, in the north-eastern city Mashhad. The demonstrators are wearing masks and appear to be using fireworks and pointing green lasers at a group of security forces in the distance.
The footage is a series of clips edited together, with gunfire and other explosions audible in many of them, while one clip shows what appears to be the muzzle flash of a gun being fired from a bridge over the road.
Watch the video here:
- Monday on BBC Verify Live, published at 10:50 GMT.
Adam Durbin, BBC Verify Live senior journalist.
Good morning from BBC Verify Live.
We’ve been analysing video that has emerged from Iran over the weekend, where mass-demonstrations against the government and an ensuing brutal crackdown have showed little sign of slowing down. The team has counted at least 180 bodies of people who appear to have been killed in footage from just one morgue in the capital Tehran.
Oil tankers that have been sanctioned by both the US and UK have been spotted in British waters, so we’re looking into their origin, ownership and tracking the route the ships have taken.
We’re also examining Ukrainian claims that it has struck three Russian oil platforms in the Caspian Sea. Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces released video which appears to be video from drones striking the drilling facilities overnight, which we’re checking against satellite imagery and fire-tracking data to see what it tells us.
