Adam Durbin
BBC Verify Live senior journalist

Most of our coverage today has been centred on BBC Verify’s work tracking the development of the anti-government protests that have shaken Iran for more than two weeks. Here’s a quick run-down of what we’ve verified:

• Chaotic scenes on a highway in north-eastern Iran
• Protesters gathering in Tehran square during a reported blackout in the Iranian capital, external
• Chants of “death to Khamenei” heard at a funeral
• Crowds of people at a mortuary, and one video in which at least 180 bodies can be seen

The team has also taken a look at video released by Ukraine of drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, as well as tracked 10 UK-sanctioned oil tankers sailing through the English Channel.

BBC Verify Live’s coverage will be back tomorrow.

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

BBC Verify has been tracking the anti-government protests across Iran for weeks, but because international news organisations are restricted from operating inside the country it is difficult to rapidly verify developments on the ground.

The state broadcaster and official news agencies follow strict guidelines dictated by the government and independent Iranian journalists routinely face persecution and harassment for any reporting that is critical of the authorities.

Internet access is also heavily restricted, with most of the major social media platforms and Western news agencies completely banned. However, Iranians have become adept at using a variety of methods such as VPNs to circumvent these restrictions.

Image source, Getty Images

The authorities imposed a near total internet blackout last week in an effort to suppress the unrest. The blackout was imposed after hundreds of videos from the protests had been posted on social media and eye-witness accounts from Iranians on the ground had been reported to foreign journalists.

But most Iranians have been almost completely cut off from the outside world since the blackout was imposed last Thursday. The flow of videos has been significantly reduced and it has become extremely difficult to speak to people inside Iran. Even phone connections no longer work.

A small number of Iranians have access to SpaceX’s Starlink and have been posting a few videos of the latest developments. Some have also managed to momentarily connect to the internet and share their observations with journalists, friends and family members living abroad.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian

Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed in Iran’s anti-government protests. BBC Persian has spoken to the friend of one victim, a young football coach and referee named Amir Mohammad Koohkan.

Koohkan, 26, was hit by live ammunition during a protest near the town of Neyriz, in the south-western Fars Province, on 3 January, his friend told BBC Persian.

"Everyone knew him for his kindness,” his friend said, adding that Koohkan’s family is grieving and "angry because he was killed by the regime".

The friend said they had known Koohkan, an indoor futsal (a form of football) coach and referee, for 10 years: "From childhood he was my coach, then he became like my brother."

They described Koohkan as "someone who didn't like to see people in this state... in this misery".

Read more here.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Sadiq Khan has been pushing back on suggestions crime in London has spiralled during his time in office, claiming in interviews and articles this morning that the capital has become safer.

Among those making the accusation is US President Donald Trump, who has had several high-profile disputes with the mayor of London in recent years.

In a Guardian article, external Khan has written that “violent crime is lower than ever”, citing a drop in homicides. He also suggested the Metropolitan Police has been tackling violent crime by taking actions such as removing thousands of weapons from the streets and closing county lines operations.

Many violent crimes did fall according to the latest Met police recorded figures, external.

In the 12 months to June 2025, homicides in the capital , externalfell by 6% year-on-year. Other crimes in the category “violence against the person”, such as violence with injury and stalking and harassment, also declined.

But violence without injury, which are offences involving violence but with no resulting physical harm, rose by 5%.

Sexual offences, another type of violent crime counted separately in official statistics, increased 11% in the year to June.

Several other police forces in England and Wales recorded similar rises in these offences during this time.

Becky Dale and Christine Jeavans
BBC Verify senior journalists

We’ve now verified videos of protests taking place in 27 of the 31 provinces in Iran since the anti-government demonstrations started.

For the past two weeks, journalists from BBC Verify and BBC Persian have been gathering and authenticating videos shared on social media of protests occurring across Iran to be able to map the demonstrations.

When the protests began on 28 December, they were mainly centred in the capital city of Tehran. By 2 January, they had expanded to many more cities, especially in the west.

The Iranian government imposed a total internet and satellite service blackout on 8 January, which means the number of videos we have been able to collect has been far more limited than in late December.

Even so, we’ve identified at least 67 cities so far where we’ve been able to verify videos of the demonstrations, though there may be many more taking place across the country.

Benedict Garman, Richard Irvine-Brown and Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

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 centre 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 , externalat the time it, external“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, external 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.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

There have been callsto 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.

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 idenfitied, 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”.

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 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.

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.

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 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:

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 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.