At least 208 people in Iran have been killed amid protests over sharply rising petrol prices and a subsequent crackdown by security forces, Amnesty International says, as one government official acknowledged telling police to shoot demonstrators.
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Iran has yet to release any nationwide statistics over the unrest that gripped the Islamic Republic beginning November 15 with minimum prices for government-subsidised petrol rising by 50 per cent.
Iran's mission to the United Nations disputed Amnesty's findings early on Tuesday, though it offered no evidence to support its claim.
Iran shut down internet access amid the unrest, blocking those inside the country from sharing their videos and information, as well as limiting the outside world from knowing the scale of the protests and violence.
The restoration of the internet in recent days across much of the country has seen other videos surface.
"We've seen over 200 people killed in a very swift time, in under a week," said Mansoureh Mills, an Iran researcher at Amnesty.
"It's something pretty unprecedented in the history of the human rights violations in the Islamic Republic."
In a statement on Monday, Amnesty said "the real figure is likely to be higher".
Mills said there was a "general environment of fear inside of Iran at the moment".
While not drawing as many Iranians into the streets as those protesting the disputed 2009 presidential election, the petrol price demonstrations rapidly turned violent faster than previous rallies.
That shows the widespread economic discontent gripping the country since May 2018, when President Donald Trump imposed crushing sanctions after unilaterally withdrawing from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.
Since the summer, tensions across the Mideast have spiked with attacks the US blames on Tehran.
Iran, meanwhile, began to break the deal's centrifuges, enrichment and stockpile limitations with hopes of pressuring Europe to offer it a way to sell crude oil abroad despite Washington's sanctions.
Iran's UN mission in New York called Amnesty's findings "unsubstantiated".
"A number of exile groups (and media networks) have either taken credit for instigating both ordinary people to protest and riots, or have encouraged lawlessness and vandalism, or both," spokesman Alireza Miryousefi said.
The demonstrations began after authorities raised minimum petrol prices by 50 per cent to 15,000 rials a litre ($A.66). After a monthly 60-litre quota, it costs 30,000 rials a litre.
Australian Associated Press
