Mourners attend mass funerals in Tehran as protest death toll exceeds 2,500

Tens of thousands of mourners thronged the streets of Tehran for a mass funeral of security forces and civilians on Wednesday.

Caskets were covered in red and white roses, and people in the crowd held aloft pictures of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The pro-government demonstration came as the death toll in the protests rose to over 2,500 people killed, the vast majority of them demonstrators.

After Iranian state television reported that 300 coffins would be on display at Tehran University, Associated Press reporters there saw around 100.

It wasn’t clear why there was a discrepancy.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, which is tracking the death toll, said at least 2,571 people have been killed: 2,403 protesters and 147 government-affiliated.

Activists had already warned that hangings of those detained could come soon.

But US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he’s been told “on good authority” that plans for executions in Iran have stopped, even as Tehran has signaled fast trials and executions ahead in its crackdown on protesters.

Earlier on Wednesday, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran's top judge, said the government must act quickly to punish more than 18,000 people who have been detained through rapid trials and executions.

Execution postponed

A 26-year-old protester who was detained last week by Iranian authorities has had his execution postponed but has not been released, according to one of his relatives.

Activists said that Erfan Soltani, a clothing shop employee, was among the thousands of Iranians who were rounded up in the last week after nationwide protests sparked by economic distress turned into days of deadly anti-government unrest.

Somayeh, a 45-year-old close relative of Soltani who is living abroad and asked to be identified by first name only for fear of government reprisal, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his family had been told his execution would be set for Wednesday but it was postponed when they got to the prison in Karaj, a city north-west of Tehran.

The relative said that his family has spent the last six days in agony over what could happen to him and now are left with even more uncertainty.

The current death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Gauging the demonstrations and the death toll from abroad has grown more difficult and The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll given the communications being disrupted in the country.

However, more information is expected to come out of Iran because as activists there say that satellite internet service Starlink is now free so they are able to transmit more videos and photos, despite the government shut down of the internet last week.

UN Security Council

The United States has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Iran on Thursday afternoon, a council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting has not yet been scheduled.

Britain has shut its embassy in Iran and withdrawn its diplomats as tensions spiral over security forces’ lethal crackdown on protests and speculation about US action in response.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called for the top UN official to condemn and reject “all acts of terrorism during the unrests regardless of the incentives.”

Araghchi reiterated Iranian officials’ claims, without providing evidence, that the US and Israel have been directly involved in the escalation of recent nationwide protests in Iran that have killed more than 2,500 Iranians.

“Peaceful protests started from Dec. 28, 2025 on economic grounds were sabotaged by terrorist elements who turned them into armed riots,” he wrote to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Araghchi also said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that Iran is “ready for negotiation” and has been for the past 20 years. He urged the US to find a solution through negotiation, and said “diplomacy is much better than war.”

Araghchi blamed terrorist groups for the violence as part of an “Israeli plot” to “drag (Trump) into the conflict.”

Travel warnings

The UK Foreign Office said Wednesday that “we have temporarily closed the British Embassy in Tehran, this will now operate remotely.”

It said British staff have been withdrawn “due to the security situation.”

The government had already advised British citizens against traveling to Iran.

The United States Embassy in Kuwait said it had ordered a “temporary halt” to its personnel from going to multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country amid heightened tensions with Iran over a crackdown on nationwide protests there.

It said that it was “a temporary halt to movement into facilities at Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Patriot.”

Kuwait is home to US Army Central, the service’s Mideast command.

The US Embassy in Qatar also issued a notice early Thursday, saying it had “advised its personnel to exercise increased caution and limit nonessential travel” to Al Udeid Air Base.

“We recommend US citizens in Qatar do the same,” it added.

Some personnel at a key US military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate by Wednesday evening, according to a US official and the Gulf country.