Why lie about this when the first paragraph is explicit about its source?
> As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME
It's pretty common practice if naming them will get the people who shared the info in trouble. Depends on whether you think Time is a trustworthy source I guess
> As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME