UPDATE

A further note on Iranian casualty statistics

Further to my recent post about Iran casualty statistics, and their invention and weaponizaton in certain circles to promote another war against the Islamic Republic, the New York Times on 25 January 2026 published an extensive report on casualties during the recent unrest. According to this report:

As more information emerges from Iran, the death toll has hit at least 5,200 people, including 56 children, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group that also monitors the situation in Iran, has confirmed at least 3,400 killed. Both organizations say that the numbers could prove two or three times as large as verification continues.

In other words, according to these organizations, the final death toll could conceivably be 10,000 - 15,000, but confirming this will require extensive additional investigation and confirmation.

A staggering toll by any standard, it presumably includes not only demonstrators and other civilians killed by security forces (the great majority of the total) but also security forces and government officials targeted by armed elements (whose identity is subject to extensive speculation) and members of the latter group.

The NYT report, which is bitterly critical of the Iranian government and its conduct during the recent unrest, does not even reference the preposterous figure of at least 43,000 civilian deaths (and at least 350,000 wounded) invented out of thin air by the International Centre for Human Rights (ICHR), which I examined in my post.

Nevertheless, the ICHR figure continues to be parroted by advocates for war against Iran, and by Israel flunkies in particular, and has been transformed into a litmus test: anyone who dismisses it as the fantasy it is, is a fanboy of the Islamic Republic.

ICHR and its acolytes clearly have a thing or two to learn from the Gaza Ministry of Health.