So there's been a lot of talk about the geopolitical implications of the protests in Iran, but there has been little heard from protesters themselves. That is not merely a failing of the media. Part of the reason is that the government there shut has shut down the Internet for an extended period of time, which is blocking people from reaching loved ones or reaching Western or any other media outside of Iran, and it's blocking people from inside journalists
who are inside Iran from getting images out. There's also the phenomenon that we know of transnational repression that even if you are able to get in touch with one of your family members who is in Iran, if you speak publicly and they find out who you are there, you know there's a significant risk for the family back at home. So joining us today will be a person who has been involved in protests for several decades at this point inside Iran, and was there at the height
of the demonstrations, has since left. We're not going to talk about where she has left to her where she came from for her in order to conceal her identity, but we're grateful that she's joined us today. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me, and so can.
You can you tell us a little bit about well, actually tell us the first protest that or how did you realize that this protest movement which started shortly after Christmas was something serious and when did you first start participating in it.
I I went home to visit family. I had no idea that there was unrest until Thursday night, eight of January and we were sitting around.
You had been there for weeks at that point.
Yes, yes, but there.
I didn't notice anything, and we would hear about things happening outside of Tehran, but not in Tehran. I didn't notice anything, and that's not surprising because I wasn't near anywhere near center of town or places that people would gather. But on Thursday night, around eight pm, we started.
We were yes January eighth.
We were sitting around, just drinking, socializing with a few of my friends, and we started hearing chanting outside. So we went out to check out what was happening, and we realized that people were getting together and the chants were getting louder and louder, so we decided to go out and check it out. It's cold in Iran at night right now, so it took like a few minutes to get our codes get ready, and we were in the streets on Thursday night a little before eight thirty pm.
And so what did you see when you were out there?
There were just like groups of people. We walked for a long time. So by the end of the night we were miles away from where we started, and it was there were people everywhere everywhere in Alley's main streets and they were moving.
There were more.
And more people joining main streets in Tehran and they were chanting, and everybody was really excited and we were all surprised. All of us were surprised to see these many people all out on the streets. People of Iran have been protesting for a long time, and at least for myself, I can say that I've always dreamt of these many people coming out supporting each other, and it happened.
Yeah, how did it compare to previous demonstrations over the years.
So I've never seen anything like this on any It never not in Green movement, although there was there was a silent protest after the election during the Green Movement that I wasn't. I wasn't there, but I heard that there were hundreds of thousands of people silently walking. But besides that one, I have never never heard about anything this massive, and it seemed organic and it seen and people were joining as they were hearing chance from the streets.
People were coming out. I saw an old lady like with a cane, really old. I went and talked to her. I asked her to go home. I told her that I would do what she wants to do. She should tell me what I should chant, and I would do it for her. She doesn't have to be out. And she's like, no, I'll stay, I'll just walk slowly. I'll walk behind you. And that was Thursday night. Was just awesome.
So there were some reports of violence that Thursday evening or somewhere around the city. Did you see anything that What was the you know, what was the balance between kind of just marching and chanting versus clashes with security services.
I we did not see any clashes between security forces and the protesters, and they stayed away from us. The two times that we saw any sign of God and regime people present was tear gas behind the crowd. If they wanted to they wanted us to move, they would tear gas that area and we would just walk away from that area.
That was it.
There was no classes that I saw on Thursday. Thursday was pretty much people and the crowds got so big, I don't know. Besides what they did on Saturday, there was nothing they could have done. There was just so many people that the sheer number of people in the streets was unprecedented.
So then Friday, January tenth, what was your experience?
So Friday was the same, but with more presence from police forces, militia. We saw them, they but they wouldn't engage. There was still tear gas. But I heard from other friends across town that they saw snipers on rooftops and they saw people falling. So there was some presence on Friday night, but it was still mainly people and the only I don't know what I saw the coverage on State TV. They saw that people set fire to moss
and I'm not surprised by that. When you use mosques to force people into a way of life, you shouldn't be surprised if that's the first thing they said on fire. But I heard other violent stories that I did not witness. I don't know if normal, regular people are capable of that kind of violence, but I don't know, like state governments have turned people into violent beings all the time, So but I didn't witness any of the protesters doing anything violent on Tuesday, Friday or Saturday that night.
And at that point, what's communication?
Like?
You couldn't communicate out of the country, but within the country you could.
So on Thursday night I could even text outside of Iran up to I don't know if it was eight pm or nine pm, Like between eight and nine pm, everything just stopped working. We couldn't even call each other. Internet went out. That was Thursday night calls. So the only thing that we could do it was landline to landline. Land lines could call each other.
But that was it.
On Thursday night, so there was really no way to organize at all.
Friday night happened organically.
So then Saturday people are back in the streets. What what time did you go back out on Saturday? Describe what Saturday was like.
Saturday was. I don't think i'll ever forget Saturday. Saturday was brief. I think it was around I had to do something on Saturday for work, so it's a little later, I think around seven or eight. I don't think it took even an hour. But as soon as we reached.
An area.
That people would gather, we started hearing machine guns like not just one shot, two shots, just like shots NonStop. And then as we they we ran and uh, we heard people falling. And then I saw like two blocks away from like further away from where we were, a neighborhood just got lit up silently, just so bright that it was like it was day for like ten seconds. I don't know what they use, but it just lit
up and then went quiet. There were big groups of bikers with like machine guns and machetes, just patrolling and they have uniforms. No, they were like dressed in black with face masks. And my friends asked me if they were Iranian or not, and there's no way we could have. We could have, we could have tell. It's just impossible to tell they were.
They were in a large group together, like can you just describe these motorcyclists.
Yeah, there was.
They were always in large groups together, dressed in black, like like commandos or like movies, and.
Really scary like staring.
Even the day Sunday, after Saturday, I was in a car and they they were patrolling the streets after Saturday, and they came from behind. I could group of fifty of them at least, and I was so scared that I couldn't look away. And one of them was staring at me. And one of my friends held my hand and was like, look at me, don't look at them, like try to get my attention away from them.
Just freakishly terrifying.
And you were telling me that as you were running you you could hear the bullets and you could see people fall. How close to how close to you were the people who were going down? Like what kind of.
I have no idea, right.
Like I I could tell you, but I don't know how accurate it would be.
It was shocking.
How did you finally get away?
Like? What?
What was what got you to?
We ran? We ran that far away, like we got lucky because we got out late and we just ran back into the alley and people open doors. But it was just like we were close enough to get.
Away to the place where you were staying.
Yes, I wasn't.
We didn't even got that far on Saturday, and then it was quiet like silence Thursday and Friday, Like at one two am, people would still be in the streets and they were chanting from rooftops and windows, and people would bard even if they didn't leave the house. Saturday night after so like for an hour there was a lot of noise, a lot of light, a lot of commotion, and then silence just just absolute, like even I don't think Tehran has ever been this silent, and I know.
We weren't even sirens or nothing, just definitely.
Nothing, just silence. And I know that I try not to watch the videos still because like I don't Yeah, I can't take them right now, but I know that videos are coming out now, but most of these videos are from Thursday night, Friday, and maybe Saturday if it's super violent. There was nothing after in Tehran.
So Sunday Monday, so the rest, So that was completely from your perspective, that was complete suppression.
Yes, Saturday night Tehran was massacred and then it went quiet.
Is is there any is there any sense or is any talk of renewing them once people have regrouped, or is your sense that this is the level of violence was significant enough that it's just completely knocked that, Like I don't totally suppressed.
I don't know if I can predict that, but every time that the people. Everyone have protested, they have responded with violence, and every time the next time it's been worse for them. And I think something changed on Saturday night because they killed indiscriminately, They fired into crowds of people, and they said that they were going to do that, but I don't think people.
They sent.
Text messages from intelligence services to all of the people of Tehran. That was the only text that we could receive to numbers in Iran, and they warned the people don't come out, because we are going to use force if you do.
And they did something changed.
I know that there's a lot of discussion of who can hijack this movement, the freedom movement of the people of Iran, and it's very possible, but I can tell you this, the way that the government of Iran has responded to the protest is every single person in Iran would happily join any intelligence service to end this regime. There's that we are not unified in what we want, but we are unified and not wanting this to amic republic.
What was the talk among demonstrators about what the end goal was like? What what was the step from you know, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets on Thursday to the regime being toppled.
There wasn't a lot of talk. We were just like chat thing.
But my sense is that nobody knows, and that's very scary. And I think the people that we all know that in chaos there's risk. They know that their livelihood is going to be affected. Dollar has, like the Iranian currency has dropped in value so much that a regular person in Tehran now makes a little less than three hundred dollars. Probably millions of families have dropped from middle class to poor. So I think they know it's going to be rough.
I think they're scared of what's going to happen next. I think this government could have stopped this many many times during this forty seven years. They could have made change easier and smoother. But every time they chose to oppress their own people, to kill their own people, hang their own people, torture their own people, disappear their own people. And there was the saying after Massamini was murdered that the rage of a grieving mother will never go quiet.
And there are.
Thousands of grieving mothers in you're on right now, and I don't know what they're going to do with that. They might succeed this time, but something changed.
Now.
The videos and the photos that you shared with me that you and your friends took were those mostly from Thursday and Friday, Like, I, did you catch anything from Saturday or were you in and out so fast?
No?
No, they were yes, No, I had nothing on Saturday, and I meant to take a video of the bikers, but I was so scared I couldn't move. I can tell you this. They were like freakishly terrifying.
They're moving around collectively, yes.
And patrolling even after Saturday night they would patrol and scream and you know, just make sure that their presence is known and that they are causing terror so that people won't come out anymore.
I also wanted to get your reaction to the government's response here as you saw they they they brought in a bunch of ministers from around the world and showed them footage of lost armed and masked. And people have probably seen a lot of this footage as it has d of circulated over the internet. On the internet. Here you have people, you know, the firing a shotgun and there's more of this. You know, how does this how do how do you relate that to these the dynamic that unfolded.
I didn't see anybody armed in the crowd, and I didn't see any violence. I'm not surprised. It's been forty seven years. I'm not even surprised if it turns out that there are foreign agents among the crowds. Of course, I know Israel benefits from time wild in Iran. I'm not surprised if they tried to capitalize on this, if they were to hijack it. But and I'm not surprised that the government of Iran does these kind of performative sittings with ambassadors. They have done this, It's not new.
And they have a certain narrative that everybody that opposes US is imperialist agent in the agents of Mossad or Cia. And I'm not denying that Mussad or Cia are not benevolent agents in the world. But I can tell you that most of the people in the streets are the people of Iran. And I'm not saying that they are beyond being manipulated. Of course they are. But any I think anyone in the situation that the people of Iran are right now economically, culturally, sanction wise, relationships with the
outside world. You look at the situation in Uran from any aspect that you like, you will understand why the people of Iran would come to the street. It doesn't matter who asks them to. They want change. And I don't think these kind of having ambassadors watch videos would work anymore. Even if there are armed agents that hijack these movements, that doesn't matter. That's not the movement, because this is not This hasn't been the only uprising. We
have been protesting for forty seven years. The Molaws are corrupt and cruel, and that's the truth. And I think, as somebody who's been a leftist and a progressive, I'm actually a little heartbroken that we can't say that with our full chest. Because Iran has been a presence in the Middle East, that's at least a kind of obstacle for United States and Israel. But that shouldn't mean that we deny the people of Iran what they deserve, which
is freedom and a dignified life. And if Iran has been an obstacle for Israel, and Israel has been an obstacle for the Islamic Republic, all of that can be analyzed without being silent when people are being oppressed.
Now when it when it comes to the American response, the Trump administration, as far as my sources are telling me, are still leaning towards air strikes despite the fact that
we are where we are. Where do the demonstrator? Obviously there are a lot of different viewpoints, but like, how do you see American intervention and how to how what is your general sense of how people in the street since it, And it goes to that same question earlier, what's the step from American air strikes to the regime topling? Because from my own analysis, and I don't know. I've never been to Iran, I don't know it as well as people who live there. But I don't see how
American air strikes bring about regime change. I fail to see what the connect how that connects from one to the other. So give me your take on that.
I okay, I'm hesitant to just give you my own opinion. I'll tell you what I think and what I think people of your own think most of them.
I am anti war.
I do not like air strikes and I do not like barn interventions.
They're always shortsighted in.
Not motivated by what I think is needed on the ground, so I and I don't respect Donald Trump in any shape or form. So my personal opinion is I don't trust what he says. I don't trust what he does, and I don't I wouldn't if it was me, I wouldn't ask him or help. And I don't know how air strikes can lead to regime change. I have no idea either. I'm just a normal person. I've never worked in politics, but inside on the streets, I think people
were as divided as the Iranian diaspora. Outside of Iran, I think there are a lot of people that are so done, they're so it's been so bad that they're like anything. If they can change, if they can attack and kill Harmony, for example, without us having to pay a lot, sure why not. And there are people that are like, absolutely not. We do not want anybody to attack us, and I don't. I'm not saying that we
should take everybody's opinion and take an average. I don't believe in that kind of attitude when it comes to making these decisions. And I don't presume that I know what's best. So I'm just talking for myself. I'm just telling you what I think and I think the best thing for Iran is for we have elites in prison, we have elites outside of Iran.
We can have.
A group of people that would help the people, help referendums, and help pulling to move from this regime to a more democratic one if possible. Throughout forty seven years, they have tried to kill and silence everybody inside of Iran, and they have done some assassination outside of Iran as well. But I still think Iranians themselves have people that are capable of steering this country at least towards a better path.
I don't think we need anyone, particularly those who are responsible for geniciding other people.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your your experience. Very much appreciate you. Uh, I'm sure that was I'm sure that was. That was difficult, and it's going to live with you for forever.
Thank you.