Hundreds of gunshot eye injuries found in one Iranian hospital amid brutal crackdown on protests

The Guardian ^ | Tue 13 Jan 2026 13.15 EST | Deepa Parent and William Christou

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Doctors in Tehran tell of overwhelmed medical staff as violent crackdown intensifies

An ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital, as overwhelmed medical staff struggle to cope with the toll of an increasingly violent crackdown on nationwide protests by Iranian authorities.

Three doctors, in messages forwarded to the Guardian on Monday, described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot. Medical staff said the gunshot wounds were mostly concentrated on protesters’ eyes and heads – a tactic that rights groups said authorities used against demonstrators in the country’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

“[Security forces] are deliberately shooting at the head and the eyes. They want to damage the head and the eyes so they can no longer see, the same thing they did in [2022],” said a doctor in Tehran. The doctor added that many of the patients had to have their eyes removed and were blinded.

Iran’s demonstrations, which started on 28 December over a sudden dip in the value of the country’s currency, have since turned into the country’s biggest anti-government protest movement since 2009. Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across the country each night, chanting anti-government slogans such as “death to the dictator”, a reference to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The protests have alarmed authorities, and on Thursday night, they shut off internet and mobile access in the country, cutting the Iranian people off from the rest of the world. Rights groups have accused the government of exploiting the media blackout to carry out a brutal crackdown against protesters.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in the protests – more than 90% of whom were demonstrators – and over 16,700 people have been arrested, the US-based...

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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
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[Cletus.D.Yokel]

rubber bullets, I assume.

[EnderWiggin1970]

Or buckshot?

[T.B. Yoits]

Or pepper balls. Maybe rock salt.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Or pellet guns.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Or Red Ryder BB guns.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Maybe close-range blanks?

[EvilCapitalist]

You’ll shoot your eye out kid!

[dfwgator]

With a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.

[Quickgun]

Probably just birdshot in shotguns. Close up, it will kill, of course, but at a distance a swarm of #7 1/2 shot is likely to blind if fired at the face.

[roving]

Some are using pellet guns