The true death toll from the bloody events has been disputed since Iran cracked down on protests from January 8 to 10. According to data provided by the Iranian government, 3,117 people killedincluding civilians and security forces. However, foreign estimates put the number at between 5,000 and 36,500.

The scope reflects not only the extreme difficulty of verifying these reports, but also a concerted effort to use the death toll to create global agreement for attacks on Iran and to use deceptive rhetoric to downplay the official death toll of the Gaza genocide.

Since the protests began, there has been a race to estimate and report casualties—what I call the “death toll Olympics.”

Human rights groups focused on Iran, led by dissident activists, have been reviewing various evidence and testimonies to verify the death toll. As of this writing, the US organization HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency) has cited more than 6,000 dead More than 17,000 more cases are under review.

However, there are legitimate doubts about the speed of the activist-led verification process.

For each reported death, multiple accounts must be checked, possible duplications must be identified and eliminated; dates, locations and circumstances must be cross-checked against a timeline of events.

Additionally, any visual evidence must be localized and verified against open source data, or corroborated by the testimony of multiple witnesses. From a survey perspective, the reliability and quality of activist-dominated statistics is increasing rapidly every day and deserves to be treated with caution.

UN special rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato cited conservative estimates About 5,000 people died. At the same time, she also mention Medical sources reported to her an unconfirmed number as high as 20,000.

Iran has severely restricted internet access over the past few weeks, further exacerbating these obstacles and verification difficulties. Nonetheless, major media outlets have begun publishing higher figures based solely on vague and anonymous sources claiming privileged positions in the Iranian government or health authorities.

For example, on January 25, the British television network Iran International publish One report claimed 36,500 people had been killed, citing “numerous reports” allegedly obtained from Iran’s security agencies – reports that were neither published nor otherwise made public.

On the same day, the American news magazine Time publish An article titled “Iran protest death toll could exceed 30,000, according to local health officials”. It is said that “as many as 30,000 people were killed on the streets of Iran on January 8 and 9 alone,” according to two senior officials from the Iranian Ministry of Health, whose identities were not disclosed for security reasons. Notably, the magazine admitted in the article that it did not have any means to independently confirm the figure.

Two days later, the British newspaper The Guardian published an article following the same trend Titled “Missing bodies, mass burials and ‘30,000 dead’: What’s the truth about Iran’s death toll?” The article presented a figure of 30,000, based on the estimate of an anonymous doctor interviewed by the newspaper. The outlet acknowledged that he and his colleagues in Iran were actually hesitant to provide specific figures.

Other outlets – from The Sunday Times to Piers Morgan’s Uncensored Show – cited a paper circulated by German ophthalmologist Amir Parasta claiming the death toll was at 16,500 and 33,000. However, the latest version of the paper, which dates back to January 23, uses a controversial extrapolation method to arrive at its data. Remarkably, Palasta did not hide his relationship with Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s deposed king

The exiled crown prince and his team’s extensive social media manipulation and disinformation campaign have been recent surveys A joint study by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab identified key actors in inciting and escalating recent protests. Therefore, the death toll spread by Mr. Palasta cannot be considered neutral and constitutes, at best, a partisan estimate.

Despite acknowledging that they cannot verify these estimates, the relevant media still put these extreme numbers in headlines and subtitles. It didn’t take long for other media outlets to report on these inflated numbers, citing these major publications as primary sources. They are also used by activists and Western politicians to push their own agendas, further fueling the spiral of disinformation campaigns on social media. ——In other words, a “death toll Olympics” was born.

All of this serves two purposes.

First, it supports efforts to create consent for foreign military intervention and malign political action. Even as protests continue, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened military action against Iran if a deadly crackdown occurs. As of this writing, the United States has a massive military buildup around Iran, effectively raising the specter of war.

Second, speculation about the Iranian death toll has helped pro-Israel politicians and commentators in the West downplay the toll of Israel’s Gaza war. In this way, it becomes a utilitarian tool for relativizing the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Faced with pressure from the mounting death toll, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered authorities to “publicly publish the names and personal details of those who died in the recent painful events.” His communications director even promised that a process had been established to check and verify any conflicting claims.

It remains to be seen how effective and transparent the promised process will become. It is undeniable that thousands of people have been killed in Iran, mostly by Iranian security forces, during days of brutal crowd and riot control efforts.

Structural ambiguity and restrictions on access to Iran for independent experts may mean the exact death toll can never be determined. However, the greater the transparency around the scale of the killings, the more likely it is that the perpetrators will be held accountable.

The painstaking verification process of the recent deaths is vital not only to establish accountability but also to expose the media manipulation that has once again laid the foundation for US-led unilateral aggression in the Middle East. In light of this, the “Olympic death toll” remains a shameful disservice to the unfortunates across the planet, from Palestine to Iran.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.