BBC Persian has received dozens of accounts from inside Iran, with witnesses saying they want to ensure the world knew of the violence against protesters.
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Heading home after joining a protest in Tehran on 8 January, Reza put his arms around his wife Maryam to protect her. "Suddenly, I felt my arm go light – there was only her jacket in my hands," he told a family member, who later spoke to BBC Persian. Maryam had been fatally shot - and they had no idea where the bullet had come from.
Reza carried Maryam's body for an hour and a half. Exhausted, he sat down in an alley. After a short time, the door of a nearby house opened. The people who lived there took them into their garage, brought a white sheet and wrapped Maryam's body in it.
Days before Maryam headed out to the protests, she had told her children - aged seven and 14 – about what was happening in their country. "Sometimes parents go to the protests and don't come back," she said. "My blood, and yours, is no more precious than anyone else's."
Reza and Maryam's names have been changed for safety reasons.
Maryam is one of thousands of protesters who should have returned home but never did, as the authorities responded to the rapid spread of demonstrations across Iran with a deadly crackdown.
The US-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has been able to confirm the killing of at least 2,400 protesters, including 12 children, during the past three weeks.
It is extremely difficult to determine the death toll, which is expected to rise in the coming days, because the country remains under a near-total internet blackout imposed by Iranian authorities on Thursday night.
Human-rights groups have no direct access to the country and, along with other international news organisations, the BBC is unable to report on the ground.
Iranian authorities have not provided a death toll but local media have reported 100 security personnel have been killed, and protesters - whom they have portrayed as "rioters and terrorists&