The Times of Israel reports: “Iranian regime operatives have been forcing protesters and their families to falsely present individuals killed by security forces in the recent wave of protests as members of the regime’s Basij paramilitary force who were attacked by demonstrators, according to accounts from inside Iran shared with The Times of Israel this week.

The testimonies were relayed to three Iranian anti-regime activists based in the United Kingdom and Canada by acquaintances inside Iran, and then forwarded to The Times of Israel, in an effort to publicize events amid the regime’s internet shutdown and violent repression of protests, including by killing thousands who demonstrated across the country.

The demands for false claims of militia membership, which appear aimed at retroactively justifying the regime’s use of widespread deadly force against protesters, could not be independently corroborated, but matched accounts that have been cited by the UN.

‘Families are forced to pay for the bullets used [to kill their relatives], or they are told when and where they can bury the body, or even forced to lie on state TV, claiming the victim was a Basij member killed by protesters,’ a resident of Tehran said in a Farsi-language voice message sent on Thursday to one of the activists and forwarded to The Times of Israel…”