Iranian officials on Tuesday also denounced accounts of the death toll that have emerged since the protests began, saying that the number of victims was much lower but not specifying how many.

Witnesses and residents in Mahshahr, in southern Iran’s Khuzestan province, earlier had told The New York Times that dozens of men had been gunned down in the marshes and that most of them had been unarmed, except for one who did fire a shot at the security forces after they had opened fire on the men at a nearby checkpoint.

Between 180 and 450 people are believed to have been killed in the four days of violence that convulsed cities around the country when demonstrators gathered on the streets to protest a gasoline price increase announced on Nov. 15. In that same period, at least 2,000 others were injured and another 7,000 detained, according to international rights organizations, opposition groups and local journalists.

Press TV, one of Iran’s state-run news outlets, on Tuesday quoted Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, as saying that the estimated casualty figures were false.

“The numbers and figures that are being provided by hostile groups are utter fabrication, and the actual figures are fewer than what these sources claim,” Mr. Esmaili said, according to the news outlet. He did not offer any official figures.