Live Blog: Iran 'Can't Be Negotiated With,' Says Pompeo

On January 15, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States had imposed sanctions on Iranian officials and banking networks, accusing them of violently cracking down on protests and laundering oil revenues.

"At the direction of President Trump, the Treasury Department is sanctioning key Iranian leaders involved in the brutal crackdown against the Iranian people," Bessent said in a statement.

"Treasury will use every tool to target those behind the regime's tyrannical oppression of human rights."

Iranian authorities have waged one of the most brutal crackdowns ever after people across the country took to the streets in anti-government protests seen as one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

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Canada's foreign minister has announced the death of one of the country's citizens in the Iran protests.

Video footage from the funeral of Alireza Seydi, a 16-year-old boy who was killed in the nationwide protests, shows a large crowd chanting slogans against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to reports, Seydi, who is from Abdanan, a city in southwestern Iran, was shot dead on January 9 during protests in Tehran.

At Seydi's funeral, which was reportedly held on January 11, mourners are heard on the video chanting "Death to Khamenei."

RFE/RL has verified that the footage was captured in Abdanan at the Martyrs of Abdanan cemetery. However, the exact date on which the footage was recorded could not be independently confirmed.

Due to the internet and telecommunications blackouts, as well as the government's refusal to provide statistics, the exact number of deaths is still unknown. As of January 14, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights organization had confirmed 3,428 deaths, while the US-based HRANA rights group verified 2,435 so far.

At the request of the United States, the United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on January 15 to "provide clarification on the situation in Iran."

Amnesty International has also called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council in order to prevent "further killings in Iran" and saying that global diplomatic action is necessary.

In a report on the current situation in Iran, Amnesty said that verified videos and credible witness accounts from Iran indicate widespread extrajudicial killings on an unprecedented scale.

Due to the internet shutdown and information blackout, the exact number of people killed in the protests is still unknown. On January 14, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization said that at least 3,428 protesters have been killed and thousands injured since the start of the protests. Other human rights organizations have warned that the number of victims could be in the thousands.

The US State Department’s Persian account on the X network has responded to the Iranian government's use of military drones to monitor protesters.

A post on the account on January 15 said: "During these protests, the Iranian regime has used military drone technology against peaceful protesters. These drones are being used to identify, track, and pursue individuals so that security forces can arrest them."

The US State Department added: "The regime of the Islamic republic of Iran views Iranian citizens as enemy combatants and is waging war against them. The world is watching what this regime is doing, and it will not be forgotten."

Despite the Internet shutdown, a number of eyewitnesses had previously made similar statements.

Following the violent and widespread crackdown on protesters in recent protests in Iran, lawyer Marzieh Mohebi announced that she had sent a letter signed by 60 lawyers to the UN secretary-general asking for immediate intervention.

The Iranian lawyer, who lives abroad, published a photo of the letter on X.

The 60 lawyers hail from the bar associations in Iran, France, the United States, Germany, Turkey, and Ukraine.

They have made this request to the UN secretary-general based on the legal principle of the "Responsibility to Protect," also known as R2P in international law.

According to the R2P, "The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."

The call comes after reports of a rising death toll from recent protests in Iran, which rights groups say could be in the thousands.

As of January 14, the Oslo-based organization Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) had confirmed 3,428 deaths, while the US-based HRANA rights group verified 2,435 so far. Many warn, however, that the actual number is likely much higher due to the lack of telecommunications and Internet blackout.

Separately, the 1Kalemah lawyers network -- a group of Iranian-born lawyers around the world working to challenge the country's judiciary -- issued a statement on January 14 calling the killing of protesters a "crime against humanity."

"The right of the Iranian people to legitimately defend their lives and property against an illegitimate government that violates fundamental rights and engages in massacres is protected, and they can use any means and means against officials and agents to bypass the Islamic Republic system," the statement said.

The lawyers added: "The Iranian people have the right to choose their own path of struggle against this religious tyranny, and to welcome any humanitarian support from free countries... States committed to human rights standards, based on the principle of universal jurisdiction and according to the circumstances, are obliged to prosecute, try and punish the perpetrators of these crimes."

The Media Center of the Iranian Judiciary denied reports that protester Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to death, which his family had shared with human rights organizations.

The Islamic republic’s judiciary claimed the reports were "fabricated by opposition media outlets abroad" and that Soltani "is currently being held in the Central Penitentiary in Karaj."

According to the officials' report, Soltani was arrested on January 10 during the protests and "charged with gathering and colluding against the country's internal security and propaganda activities against the regime."

Soltani's family, however, had said the 26-year-old was arrested on January 8 at his home in Fardis.

The Iranian Judiciary Media Center also announced that if "his charges are confirmed by the prosecution and a legal verdict is issued by a competent court, the punishment foreseen in the law will be imprisonment, and basically the death penalty does not exist in the law for such a charge."

Soltani's family had told human rights organizations that judicial authorities informed them his death sentence was "issued and final" and would be carried out on January 14.

The announcement by the Iranian Judiciary Media Center came after US President Donald Trump warned the Islamic republic’s authorities against the execution of protesters.

Trump, who had previously threatened to take very tough action if the Iranian government executed protesters, told reporters at the White House on January 14: "They've said the killing has stopped and the executions won't take place -- there were supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won't take place -- and we're going to find out."

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant says today's events in Iran are a direct result of the Donald Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign.

In an interview with Newsmax, he announced that the Trump administration, by focusing on Iran's oil exports, has tried to block the government's main source of financing, and the result of this maximum pressure has been a "total financial collapse" within the country.

In his remarks, Bessant also reported capital flight as protests in Iran intensified.

He said: "As the Treasury Department, which carries out the sanctions, we are now seeing the rats fleeing the ship. Because we can see millions and tens of millions of dollars being wired out of the country, snuck out of the country, by the Iranian leadership."

Bessant emphasized that the Treasury Department is seeing clear signs of widespread money outflows by the Islamic republic's officials.

He added: "What we do at the Treasury Department is we follow the money, whether it is through the typical banking system or through digital assets. We are going to trace these assets and they’re not going to be able to keep them."

In an interview with Fox News that aired on January 14, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attributed casualties from recent protests in the country to Israeli agents.

Without providing any evidence, he claimed that terrorists equipped by Israel intentionally shot at police and people to increase the death toll and pave the way for US President Donald Trump to intervene.

At the same time, he dismissed a question about the death toll, stating that the number of dead was "only hundreds" and that reports of higher figures were part of a "misinformation campaign."

Araqchi also rejected the figures released by human rights organizations regarding the number of deaths in the protests, saying that the Islamic republic would announce the figures at a later date.

Since the intensification of the widespread presence of protesters on the streets, Iranian officials has called them "terrorists" and violently suppressed them.

Araqchi also claimed that the protests had ceased, saying, "There is no demonstration, no unrest in the past four days."

Due to the blackout of Internet and telecommunications with Iran, as well as the government’s refusal to provide statistics, the exact number of deaths is still unknown, but the Iranian Human Rights Organization, which is based in Oslo, says at least 3,428 protesters have been killed and thousands injured since the beginning of the anti-government protests in Iran. The US-based rights group HRANA said on January 14 that it had verified the deaths of 2,435 protesters.

Human rights sources emphasize that due to the interruption of the internet and communication routes with Iran, it is not possible to verify the received figures further, and it is possible that the number of deaths is several times higher.

The watchdog NetBlocks said that Iran's Internet blackout had passed the 156-hour mark early on January 15, "as the silence deepens" amid the regime's violent crackdown on protesters.

It also warned about the spread of misinformation regarding the protests, the government's response, and the death toll -- which as of January 14 stood at more than 2,400 protesters killed, according to the US-based rights group HRANA. Because of the blackout, however, many warn that the true number may be much higher.

"The online information vacuum is resulting in the amplification of pro-regime accounts, AI fakes, and other agendas," NetBlock said in a post on X.