Among the few videos that have made it out of Iran in recent days are those that show lines of body bags outside morgue facilities in Tehran and hint at the emotional torture families are enduring to claim their deceased loved ones.
It is a rare glimpse into the devastation in Iran and some regime watchers are suspicious of why the world is seeing scenes like this at all.
Iran's authoritarian regime plunged the country into darkness, shutting down the internet and most of its connection to the outside world, but days later the videos started to appear.
Now, several have been independently verified as being recorded at a concreted area outside the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Centre in the country's capital.
Warning: A video in this story shows distressing content
The videos appear to show distraught families searching for loved ones, trying to identify them, and in some cases, wailing beside their lifeless bodies.
The vision is graphic and moving as the scale of the death toll becomes apparent.
Protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices and deteriorating living conditions in Iran, but they quickly spread across the country and turned against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Since then, hundreds of protesters have been killed in the unrest and thousands have been detained. US President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in the violent crackdown on protesters.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimated 250 bodies were visible in the handful of videos recorded near the facility.
The organisation has reported that it has documented the deaths of nearly 500 protesters and anticipates many more will follow as their investigations continue.
The ABC is not able to independently verify the tallies and Iran does not publish an official death toll.
"In these videos, families can be seen identifying bodies," the HRANA said.
"These videos have both heightened public concern over the death toll and significantly strengthened the capacity of human rights organisations to verify death cases."
State television also aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner's office, saying the dead were victims of events caused by "armed terrorists".
Again on Monday, local time, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed the protesters were trying to give Mr Trump a reason to intervene.
HRANA estimated 47 military or law enforcement officers had been killed in the unrest and Iranian state television had broadcast several of their funeral processions, according to Reuters.
According to several Iran watchers, this is the regime's propaganda machine working to intimidate protesters and break their momentum.
During previous uprisings, authorities have systematically removed the bodies of killed protesters from public view – seizing remains from hospitals, burying them in unidentified locations, delaying or denying their return, and restricting funerals to prevent them from turning into demonstrations.
Iranian blogger and civil activist Soheil, who asked for only his first name to be used and who was arrested during a previous period of protest in the country, spoke from Türkiye saying it was unusual for the regime to allow bodies to be viewed in such a public way.
"When we were out there [in 2022], the ones they killed were taken away and the bodies weren't handed over to their families for a long time. They made up excuses," he said.
"Do you really think they’d hand over the bodies now and let families come, say 'come on, go see your loved ones, come see the morgue, see if you can identify them'? Do you think they’d do that and openly say, 'yes, we killed them'. No, they don't do that.
"This is purely psychological warfare to scare people."
Families face coercion: scholar
Iran has a long history of using the bodies of deceased citizens to oppress further the loved ones they leave behind, according to human rights journalist and scholar at the University of Sydney, Saba Vasefi.
She said human rights monitors were now receiving reports that these tactics were again being used in Iran.
"There are reports on the ground by the victims’ families who have been systematically persecuted in attempts to claim the lifeless bodies of their loved ones, with some explicitly prohibited from conducting funerary rites," Dr Vasefi said.
"Reports indicate that families were coerced to compensate for the bullets that executed their relatives, an extortionist tactic historically embedded in Iran's theocratic apparatus.
"Its revival in 2026 signifies an escalation in state atrocity crimes."
The ABC has also heard reports of families being unable to locate their deceased loved ones after the remains were buried by the state in an area far from the place of death.
There have also been reports of the regime holding remains until family members agree to the narrative their deceased loved one was not a protester, but a representative of the government.
Dr Vasefi said this methodology was intentional and revealed the "instrumentalisation of familial trauma and the regime's retaliatory calculus".
"These acts are part of a systemic, deliberate, deterrence-based, state-sponsored terrorism," she said.
The protests, deaths and detainments have been recorded across the country, but the videos showing hundreds of bodies in body bags have come from within Tehran.
It is impossible to know the extent of the tactics used across the country, or the intention behind the public display of so many people who had lost their lives.
Regardless, HRANA said the videos had "greatly aided the verification process" and indicated "the crackdown has been carried out on a much broader scale".
"At the same time, the government's official narrative has grown increasingly harsh and securitised, with officials placing responsibility on 'terrorists' and 'armed rioters'," the organisation said.
Dr Vasefi said it was the content of the videos that was most important.
"Whether the source of videos showing the line of victims on the ground, with the lament of their families in the background, were circulated by protesters themselves, leaked from within the system, [or] deliberately released by the state to intimidate requires investigation," she said.
"However, in this critical moment attention must remain on the brutal reality of these serial state-sponsored crimes against humanity and the indisputable scale of the atrocities."
'The only thing we could do'
As well as videos from the morgue and coroner's office, some vision of protests and the skirmish line with revolutionary guards are slowly being shared by those who have moments of connectivity.
Australian-based Farid Motlagh is in contact with a network of friends and family still inside Iran.
After the Woman, Life, Freedom protests several years ago, he was involved in setting up a grassroot network of doctors who were working inside Iran and undertaking medical work outside of the hospitals that were under control of the regime.
Since then, the network has funded legal advice and representation for detainees, and has helped bring Starlink equipment into Iran, he said.
This work was anticipating a future when the regime would again plunge the country into its own communication dead zone, just as it did during the 2022 demonstrations.
"A lot of people got injured and instead of going to the hospital, they would stay in the home and the doctors would go and visit them, so that's how the network started," he told the ABC.
"Then after those dark days, we started to do the same thing with the lawyers."
Mr Motlagh said during the break in periods of protest in Iran, attention turned to bringing connectivity equipment into Iran, because: "that was the only thing we could do."
"We would use different names because no one wants to get caught, but they wanted to help. So it was just based on mutual trust," he said.
Speaking with a friend who is now stuck in Iran, Mr Motlagh said communities were compiling contact lists, often including family and friends outside of Iran who are desperate for news.
One person would take that list and, once online via the Starlink service, would send messages to each contact letting them know their loved ones were safe.
The regime reportedly employed interference hardware to degrade the Starlink signal, but on Monday, local time, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said internet services across the country would be restored.
Mr Motlagh also said he was concerned the scenes outside the Tehran morgue were designed "just to bring fear".
"There are some people, some activists that are saying, 'don't spread those videos because that will kill hope'," he said.
