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For over eight hours the crimes the Iranian regime tried to hide from the world play out unfiltered.
asserted
regime → see → world
Snipers aim for the heads of street protesters and pull the trigger.
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Snipers → aim → trigger
Machinegun fire rips through the crowds.
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fire → rip → crowds
Teenagers cower in homes from the armed paramilitaries marauding outside, as wounded friends bleed out in their arms.
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friends → cower → arms
Mutilated bodies are left where they fall.
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they → mutilate → ?
Later, in a final humiliation, the dead overwhelm mortuaries – packed side-by-side like slabs of meat, waiting for collection.
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dead → overwhelm → collection
But amid all the gore and the piercing howls of grief, it is the quiet words of a father searching for his son that stay with you from This Is Our Story, a powerful new documentary by Iranian opposition channel Manoto which premiers on YouTube on Saturday.
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which → search → Saturday
'Sepehr, my boy, where are you?' Esmail Shokri tenderly calls out.
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Shokri → call → ?
'Sepehr, my son, where are you?' he repeats, again and again, his voice breaking from tears.
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voice → repeat → tears
He goes from body to body at Kahrizak Forensics Centre near Tehran looking for his 26-year-old who was among tens of thousands estimated to have been killed last January.
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who → go → thousands
For 12 minutes, he examines hundreds of corpses of mainly young men and women killed on the orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
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he → examine → Khamenei
'Oh those poor young men, just look at them, look where they have ended…' he says.
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he → look → them
Sepehr Shokri, pictured DJing, was one of tens of thousands killed in Iran in January
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Shokri → picture → January
The 26-year-old was killed during protests held in the capital city of Tehran
'
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old → kill → Tehran
Oh, poor thing, look how he's resting his hand…
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he → look → hand
Oh God, they blew his head apart…
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they → blow → head
On and on he goes, horror struck at each turn, devastated for each young soul taken – but still unable to find his own boy's body.
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horror → go → body
Broken by grief, he exclaims: 'This is evidence of the Islamic Republic's crimes.
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This → break → crimes
The world needs to see this!
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world → need → this
Look, world, this isn't a movie – this is real!'
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this → look → ?
But despite his pleas, nine months on from the largest massacre of protesters in modern history, most of the world has not seen Khamenei's crimes.
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most → see → crimes
Few call out for the Iranian people.
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Few → call → people
Despite the slaughter, their suffering and loss have been all but ignored.
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suffering → ignore → slaughter
Doctors on the ground estimated perhaps over 30,000 were killed between December 28 and January 9 – the overwhelming majority on the first two days.
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30,000 → estimate → days
But on January 8, as Khamenei gave the order to step up the killing of his own people, he switched off the Iranian internet to stop the world seeing his massacre.
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world → give → massacre
The full horror of what unfolded was covered up enough so that it could be disregarded.
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it → unfold → ?
Footage from the documentary This Is Our Story showed Sepehr's father, Esmail, searching for his son's body among the dead
Esmail spent 12 minutes examining hundreds of corpses in the search for his son, pictured in his youth
Since that day, hidden from the world, the people have been systemically robbed of their dignity – many intimidated and arrested simply for grieving for their loved ones.
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many → show → ones
Tens of thousands have been arrested, with dozens executed and over 100 more facing death sentences.
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100 → arrest → sentences
The US and Israel killed Khamenei seven weeks after the protests on February 28, partly in response to this slaughter but also for their own strategic objectives.
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US → kill → objectives
Yet the war this started has not overthrown his regime.
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this → start → regime
Worse, the global economic meltdown it has triggered has further masked the suffering of Iranians at the exact moment they so desperately needed the world to see what was happening and respond.
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what → trigger → moment
Outside of Iran, they were forgotten.
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they → forget → Iran
Now Manoto seeks to right this wrong.
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Manoto → seek → wrong
For over six months, its skeleton team painstakingly combed through over 10,000 videos filmed by thousands of ordinary Iranians who risked their lives to smuggle the material out of the country.
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who → comb → country
Today it publishes the historic four-part documentary on YouTube to serve as a permanent, public record of Khamenei's massacre.
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it → publish → massacre
The Daily Mail was given exclusive access to the harrowing tapes ahead of publication.
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Mail → give → publication
The bloodbath is told only by its survivors as they record it on the ground, subtitled in English.
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they → tell → English
Before watching it, Manoto founder Kayvan Abbassi says: 'Think of Manchester,' referring to the 2017 terror attack where 22 were murdered by Islamist suicide bomber Salman Abedi.
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22 → watch → Abedi
'Now imagine that the killings were carried out by your own security forces.
'
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killings → imagine → forces
Imagine that, afterwards, families could face reprisals for speaking about the people they had lost.'
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they → imagine → people
…and 96 more, not listed.
The Aporia
