Hasan Piker Mocks Slain Iranian Protesters | WATCH

Progressive Twitch streamer and commentator Hasan Piker, known for his left-wing takes and massive audience of over 2.6 million followers, has faced sharp backlash for allegedly mocking Iranians killed during the ongoing nationwide uprising against the Islamic Republic.

Critics, including members of the Iranian diaspora and online commentators, point to recent streams where Piker reportedly used exaggerated Iranian accents while discussing the deadly protests, dismissed high death toll estimates as "poetry" or exaggerated propaganda, and equated the regime's mass killings to isolated U.S. police incidents, moves seen as downplaying the genocide-scale violence that has claimed thousands of lives since late December 2025.

The controversy erupted amid reports of over 12,000 protesters slain in just days by regime forces, with human rights groups like HRANA documenting at least 2,000 confirmed deaths overall, though the number could well be closer to 20,000.

Piker's comments came during live streams covering the crisis, where he emphasized U.S. sanctions as the root issue and criticized right-wing "hypocrisy" for supporting Iranian freedom while backing crackdowns on American protesters, such as those against ICE operations. Detractors argue this framing minimizes Tehran's atrocities, with one X user blasting: "HasanAbi is literally mocking 12 thousand dead Iranians who died at the hands of Ali Khamenei regime. I guess it’s all fun and jokes when non-Palestinians die right?" Another called him a "piece of trash jihadist" for the alleged mockery.

A clip from Piker's stream shows him adopting what viewers described as a caricatured Iranian accent while addressing the death toll, prompting outrage on platforms like Reddit's r/PERSIAN and r/h3h3productions, where users accused him of "disgusting" minimization and defending oppression. "Hasan Piker thinks Iran shouldn't be free, and thinks America is the same as Iran because apparently an American cop wrongfully killing someone is the same as the Iranian government killing 12,000 people in two days," one critic fumed.

Defenders, however, claim Piker was satirizing media reports he views as "comically exaggerated" to justify U.S. intervention, not the victims themselves, echoing his broader anti-imperialist stance against potential American military action.

Piker, nephew of The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, has not directly addressed the mockery allegations but has streamed on Iran multiple times, calling for sanctions relief via a JCPOA revival as a "left position" and slamming conservatives for selective outrage.

This isn't Piker's first brush with controversy (and that's putting it mildly); he's been labeled a "terror propagandist" by outlets like Fox News for past comments on groups like the Houthis and downplaying the October 7, 2023, attacks, claims he dismisses as smears (though no one believes him).

As protests intensify with calls for restoring the Pahlavi monarchy, Piker's remarks highlight a divide on the left: Some, like him, prioritize anti-U.S. interventionism, while others decry the regime's "massacre" outright. Iranian activists like Masih Alinejad have lambasted Western leftists for silence or deflection, asking: "Where are the 'pro-Palestinian' and 'anti-war' activists when the Islamic Republic is killing innocent Iranians?"

With the death toll climbing amid a communications blackout, the backlash against Piker underscores how global solidarity fractures along ideological lines.