What methodologies did HRANA and Iran Human Rights use to compile their death tolls?
Executive summary
HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency) and Norway‑based Iran Human Rights (IHR) have built their tallies from discrete, case‑based documentation — chiefly videos, eyewitness testimony, lists of named victims, prison and morgue information, and media reports — then cross‑checked and aggregated those items into confirmed and under‑review counts [1] [2] [3]. Both groups warn of conservative totals because restricted internet access and the withholding or manipulation of bodies and official records by Iranian authorities limit independent verification [4] [5].
1. HRANA’s core approach: case‑based verification anchored in videos, testimonies and non‑public tips
HRANA says it compiles “verified case‑based statistics” by collecting unofficial videos, family and eyewitness testimonies, media reports and non‑public documentation sent to the agency, then reviewing each case before moving it from “under review” to “confirmed” status — a workflow it credits with producing statistical surges when new visual material surfaced [1] [4]. HRANA has highlighted the role of circulating videos showing rows of bodies at Tehran morgues and families identifying corpses as enabling faster verification of individual deaths [1] [5]. The agency also publishes biographical details — names, photos, ages, dates and places of death where available — consistent with a documentary, name‑by‑name methodology described in both HRANA reporting and secondary summaries [6] [2].
2. Iran Human Rights: cross‑checked counts, named victims and NGO‑style documentation
Iran Human Rights has similarly produced aggregated totals based on confirmed individual cases and lists of victims, and has issued periodic tallies in the press that distinguish confirmed deaths from ongoing investigations [7] [8]. Reporting that cites IHR commonly notes the group’s practice of naming victims, attributing causes and compiling regional incident lists that are then cross‑referenced with eyewitness accounts and partner groups on the ground — a conventional NGO methodology for documenting protest‑related fatalities [9] [10].
3. Use of audiovisual evidence and morgue/Legal Medicine material to corroborate identities
Both HRANA and other NGO reports emphasize audiovisual evidence as a validation pivot: circulation of videos and photos from sites such as Tehran’s Legal Medicine Organization enabled cross‑identification by families and provided documentary anchors for moving cases from “reported” to “confirmed” [1] [5]. Multiple outlets report that this overlap — videos, media reporting and limited state media reflection — was decisive in accelerating case reviews and expanding confirmed counts [1] [4].
4. Cross‑checking, secrecy and the limits of disclosure
HRANA has told media it confirms data with “primary sources” inside Iran but declines to publicly identify those individuals or partner organisations, citing operational security and risk to sources; its website does not publish a full methodology for public scrutiny [3]. That opacity is both a protection and a limitation: independent journalists and major news organizations repeatedly note they cannot fully verify the tallies because of restricted access and because HRANA and IHR do not disclose all their corroboration channels [3] [7].
5. Contextual constraints: internet blackouts, government counters and contested numbers
Both groups stress that intermittent or near‑total internet shutdowns and reported interference with families’ access to bodies impede comprehensive accounting, creating large “under review” pools in HRANA’s reporting and encouraging conservative confirmed counts [4] [5]. Iranian officials and state media contest and sometimes denounce the figures as exaggerated or politically motivated, and international outlets routinely caveat the NGO tallies with statements that independent verification is not possible under present conditions [3] [11] [7].
Conclusion: rigorous but inherently constrained methodologies
HRANA and Iran Human Rights employ systematic, case‑level documentation — relying on videos, family identification, testimonies, names/photos and non‑public tips — then cross‑check and classify cases as confirmed or under review, publishing aggregated tallies while warning that their figures are conservative due to information blackouts and state obstruction [1] [2] [4]. These are standard human‑rights documentation practices adapted to a high‑risk, low‑access environment; their strength lies in granular, named cases, and their weakness lies in unavoidable limits to independent verification and source transparency in the current context [3] [5].