Refugees Tell NewsNation: Executions Continue in Iran Despite White House Claims

Iranian refugees who remain in intermittent contact with people inside Iran told NewsNation that executions of protesters are continuing, contradicting White House statements that the killings had stopped.

One refugee, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said they spoke with a protester who survived a mass shooting and was "in deep shock and anger." The survivor described seeing nearly everyone around them killed or wounded, saying government forces used G3 rifles and that municipal security units, the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) all participated.

A White House official told NewsNation that President Donald Trump is "watching the situation in Iran very seriously" and warned that "All options are on the table if the regime executes protestors." The official also said that "as a result of President Trump's warnings, Iranian protesters who were scheduled to be sentenced to death were not," and that the president hopes the reported trend continues.

Refugee sources said protesters fear abandonment if external support does not materialize. Some warned that without outside intervention Iran could slide into civil war and destabilize the region. "They said they are lucky they are still alive and don’t know how and why they survived army shooters and the machine guns; everyone in front of them and behind them was shot," the anonymous source said.

Photographer Shaghayegh Moradiannejad, who fled Iran five years ago, told NewsNation she has received accounts that killings and executions have persisted. She said a family member witnessed security forces shoot a man inside his car while his wife and young son sat beside him. "The crimes of the regime have no end," she said.

Despite White House assertions, the refugee sources and other witnesses told NewsNation that hangings are still being carried out—often inside prisons on Wednesdays and sometimes publicly on the street. They said authorities are demanding capital punishment for arrested protesters and that at least one soldier who refused to fire on civilians has been sentenced to death.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported this week a confirmed death toll of 4,519, including 40 children under 18, and said it is investigating an additional 9,049 suspected deaths. Sources who spoke with NewsNation contend the true death toll could be closer to 30,000, though they acknowledged precise accounting is extremely difficult amid a near-complete information blackout.

HRANA told NewsNation its published figures "should be understood as minimums, not estimates of the full scale of harm," and that its counts are released only after internal verification. The agency said it currently had no independent confirmation of ongoing executions. NewsNation said it had reached out to the U.N. and Amnesty International for comment but had not received replies at the time of reporting.

Analysis: Retired Lt. Col. Mike Nelson, a former U.S. Central Command officer, warned that Iran’s efforts to sever communications will make it difficult to verify casualty figures. He told NewsNation he expects the true number of fatalities to exceed official figures and that the crackdown could rank among the worst in recent history.

NewsNation's reporting is based on interviews with refugees, survivors and rights groups; many claims remain hard to independently verify because of restricted access and communications blackouts inside Iran.