This sounds like a sick joke from the worst stories from Mao or Stalin. Families of the murdered and executed in Iran are having to pay a “bullet fee” to get their loved one back for burial. Iran is a tinder box right now with estimates of up to 12,000 dead. It’s likely to get much worse before it gets better. What do families do who cannot afford the fee?

We citizens of the United States are so silly and naive. We have idiots who bully and taunt law enforcement and then kvetch when there is a price to pay. A heavy and cruel price, true. Not as cruel as an exorbitant bullet fee to retrieve the body of your family member. Your family can’t even set up a go-fund-me to pay the fee and burial costs. The foul government would confiscate that too.

Check out this New York Post article cobbled from an Iranian woman’s experiences on the ground:

The following is an eyewitness account from a young Iranian woman based in Tehran, who does not want to be identified for safety reasons. She has been cut off from contact with the outside world since the Iranian government instituted a media blackout, but on Monday briefly managed to receive messages from The Post. Over several hours, with a very patchy connection, she shared a harrowing — but hopeful — account of what is happening on the ground right now. Here are her words:

As I write this, I have just heard the news of another death — the fifth in just a few days in my close circle. This time, it was my close friend’s cousin.

He was at a protest with his wife and he saw a green light — presumably from a gun laser — that landed on her face. He thought only of protecting his wife, stood in front of her, and he was shot in the face and killed.

Like so many of the dead, the regime is now charging families “bullet fees” before they will return the bodies. His family had to pay 500 million tomans (roughly $5000) to get him back, and they buried him today.

The Islamic Regime massacre innocents and monetize their martyrdom.Through the cruel practice of demanding”Bullet Fees”the regime holds the cold remains of protesters hostage,forcing grieving parents to pay for the very lead that pierced their children's hearts;Mullah’s Tradition pic.twitter.com/4ZruQ81dPB

— دوری (@TheGirlInsideMe) January 11, 2026

Women, oppressed more heavily than men, are saying “in your face” to Supreme Leader Khamenei by lighting cigarettes and using them to light photos of Khamenei himself. Pretty over the top.

Khamenei warns Trump about what happens to tyrants but apparently Ali Khamenei doesn’t own a mirror.

They call it “the bullet fee”!
They say: Since we’ve paid for the bullets from “public treasury”, you have to pay for the bullet we used to kill your beloved!
They literally kill our people with our money and charge us again for replacing the bullet that killed one of us! https://t.co/sfFpu4awvM

— shemuel kaani🎗️ (@haze548169) January 13, 2026

The New York Post also has an Op-Ed warning Mr. Trump not to be like Mr. Obama, “Don’t make the mistake Obama did, Mr. President, enforce your Iran ‘red line’”:

The last time a US president drew a “red line” and refused to enforce it, thousands of Syrians paid the price.

Barack Obama’s 2012 failure to enforce his red line against the use of chemical weapons by the now-ousted Assad regime in Syria for the fear of empowering jihadists shattered American credibility.

It also emboldened America’s adversaries, Russia and Iran, to continue propping up Assad’s murderous rule.

Obama’s stance was an extension of the same weakness he displayed when Iran’s population took to the streets to protest the rigged vote of 2009, which resulted in the re-election of Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

Instead, he sought to quietly engage with the Iranians to enter nuclear negotiations.

Obama didn’t even truly try to engage the Iranians. He just danced around it with neatly pressed pants. People argue that Obama survived this. True. But, he was our First Black President. He could have survived just about anything.

Khamenei has likely killed tens of thousands so he has long since crossed the red line. Trump needs to stop just TALKING about taking very strong action and actually start DOING the taking of very strong action. https://t.co/7PCtuUWudL

— Jeanene Cooper (@JeaneneCooper) January 14, 2026

Trump needs to be very careful. Red lines and a bullet fee are terrifying, but he needs to make the Supreme Leader understand and give him a way out. We don’t need more dead or another 20 year war.

Featured Image: FarsNews/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Creative Commons 4.0