I'm gonna write down as much as I remember from the days Currently I've managed to snag a VPN that uses google.com as the SNI, cities near the capital and capital are completely disconnected right...
Exemplary
I'm gonna write down as much as I remember from the days
Currently I've managed to snag a VPN that uses google.com as the SNI, cities near the capital and capital are completely disconnected right now and they're getting redirected to an IP 217.218.86.27, I'm in another city for university right now. I have EXAMS and no one that I've talked to has managed to study, here's to hoping I don't fail anything this semester :)
On Jan 8 we all had heard the Shah's call for protests and my family was waiting to see if anyone would do that chant from home, a few people did, it started with one woman chanting her heart out from her balcony and others joined in.
After a while we decided to go out and check out if anythings happening outside since internet was cut. The entire city was in the streets, the protesters where pouring fuel under cameras and setting them alight.
We returned home.
The next day afternoon we went for a walk and it was a ghost town, the busiest streets were now empty, if the night before hadn't shown how big things are this time, seeing the city like that did.
That night before going out I was on the roof top, I was hearing bullets, machine guns, I saw big flashes of light lighting up the clouds from different sides of the city every 10 minutes or so, and I still don't know what they were.
After a while we went out, close by or home for safety, and there were so many people, there were groups of protesters coming from different sides, but none of them had a goal, it was just chanting and moving to random places.
The moment we saw flared bullets (the bullets that have a red flare thing behind them) in the sky and heard the sound of guns we ran, I hoped it was all shooting in the air to instill fear, but alas it wasn't.
We returned home and saw that the electricity's cut off, with great sadness and little battery I read story books that night
The next morning and night i personally didn't go out cause our apartment had a pipe burst on the fourth floor and we were fixing it, so none of our 4 floors went out.
The next days I really don't remember much.
Phone lines and land lines and sms and every way of communication was cut. People were talking in app reviews in internal app markets, until they cut it off. They were talking in game apps that allow short messages to opponents, until it got cut. In so many places, until they all got cut.
Over the days phone calls opened up, then much later sms.
There is a cemetery close ish to my home, I was passing by in the afternoon and I saw hundreds of people there, there was no slave left for standing, there were people crying and people chanting the same slogans that we had in protests. There's also news of them taking 1 billion tomans for returning the bodies of the dead people.
university guys who I talk to (intern doctors) told me about the state of hospitals, in a city of 200k population there were people who were shot, beaten up, stabbed, and afterwards whipped while they were bleeding. And then let go and brought to the hospital. They were out of space the first night, the guys weren't at the hospital anymore on the second or third day, for their own sake
A day when phones were open I was talking to friends and there was news that the government guys are knocking down doors and taking satellite dishes. my downstairs neighbor had a friend in the city that they had knocked down their door, and was staying with them for a little.
One day I called some friends and we went to each other's houses (all before 2pm, didn't dare be in streets much those days), and we hit a problem of not having internet for a lot of things, I luckily have tons of backups on different hard drives and we ended up playing Split Fiction while talking
On Jan 15 my family decided to go visit my grandmother in a smaller city. With no internet we couldn't check the weather and wouldn't you know, the streets are ice and the car kept slipping, was a dangerous way but we made it.
On the night I called a friend who's still in Karaj and I got the news that Tehran has been emptied, the previous night Trump had said that something will happen in 24 hours, so millions had gotten out of Tehran.
Nothing happened.
People returned over the next few days, but they had all hoped
While we were at my grandma's news websites said that by next week we will have fixed the internet! The next week came and what they think is the internet was actually just google.com and chatgpt.com. I spent a lot of hours seeing the titles of the news, trying to get the contents of them using chatgpt. My sadness only increased at receiving this one way communication. It was something but....
They are called terrorists by the government, however many people aren't government or any of the groups were calling them terrorists, everywhere, in sms', even internal kids tv channels.
I managed to take my mind off of things a day by going sledding, was the first time in aaalot of years that we had this much snow anywhere in the country.
Over there it's a city where almost everyone knows everyone else, on the day of protests there weren't many casualties, but the day after when people returned to work the next day they were taken, the people themselves estimated 450 people are missing.
In the city it seems like there's a... Something under a public park, all the houses around it are for sale, the families there can't sleep because of the screams of torture at night
And then there's the stories of them going to hospitals and shooting people in the head while they were hospitalized. I've heard there's a picture of a man shot in the forehead while he still had the ECG leads on his chest. Tear gasses in hospitals, taking the phones of hospital staff by force. Nightmarish stuff.
We returned back to Karaj after a week, nothing had changed much, the need to know the news kept gnawing at you and never let you focus on anything.
Playing Beat saber I couldn't ever focus for too long, just going through the list of songs I had immense feeling of sadness that I may never get anything newer. I was sad at the albums I hadn't downloaded. The movies I hadn't. At the series I could no longer follow.
The sadness stayed with me wherever, whenever.
Every few nights they would put up a news of "internet will be connected tomorrow" and the next day delete them, no one believed them, comments were always negative and depressing, they were about our life. Of not being able to support a life no matter how many jobs or professions, and now we can't have the small escape either? Let alone the people who made their living money online.
Then I got news that my university doesn't have the infrastructure to do online exams, so we have to come physically for exams. NO ONE HAS STUDIED but we gotta give the end of semester exams.
The next day I was gonna study on the bus to dormitory but then they connected the internet for a short while...
Don't think anyone can study. Other universities have delayed their exams by another two weeks, mine hasn't
VPN crackdown is insane right now. There are massive groups in Telegram trying to find ways of staying connected, some groups providing VPN configurations have 1.2M people atm Stories i heard...
Exemplary
VPN crackdown is insane right now.
There are massive groups in Telegram trying to find ways of staying connected, some groups providing VPN configurations have 1.2M people atm
Stories i heard about what happened in Neyshabur
A three year old girl each day standing near the door every day for a week for her mom to "return from a vacation"
Killed Sunday in broad daylight afternoon on Sunday 11 Jan
A friends group separated by tear gas at the protests on Jan 8, with tear gasses burning their skin, they each went home at different times relieved to see each other. One friend didn't come, they hoped she went to her own home, they couldn't call or check up on any way. Multiple days later a neighbor brought them the news. She was shot in the middle of the forehead that night.
On the funeral the mourners were attacked, they tried to take the dead girls phone from her parents. She broke the phone on her gravestone before they could take it. The people crushed the basijies at the funeral.
An elderly man who goes to see what the sounds are, shot dead at his front door within moments of opening it.
A healthcare worker getting of the bus and getting shot in the heart 10 Jan afternoon, before protests
In hospitals where they were treating the wounded, a woman coming for her own teenage son's wounds (also from protests) and screaming at everyone to help her son instead of the Terrorists. Calling the forces upon the hospital when they didn't. They took the healing supplies only returning them when it was one of them that needed healing. No morphine for the Terrorists, only for themselves
A person who's home was in the center of the city where protests were happening was giving them refuge on Jan 9.
They had a girl come crying her heart out. Wailing about his brothers death. He had his final breaths in her hands.
After calming down she went back out and wanted to avenge him.
The next morning there was a gun shot Infront of this person's home. Their son was killed Infront of their home and the killers were laughing while leaving.
A university classmate who has had people die around her, blood splatting on her. Now two weeks later giving exams and trying to keep it together until the end of exams before breaking down.
And me personally, i've been spending hours and hours trying to connect to the internet, barely managing to focus on studying
AND MY WEBSITE IS DOWN I HAD RENEWED IT LAST MONTH WHY IS A SERVER IN GERMANY DOWN ANd it doesn't matter anyway...
I'll give one good news aswell, i managed to upload my Beatsaber map yesterday (its a little 3d art project if you will), now trying to get a video of it on youtube x)
Thank you for sharing. This is horrifying to read and the fact you still have to worry about exams in the middle of all of this is like… I can't even find words. Just stay safe, man.
Thank you for sharing. This is horrifying to read and the fact you still have to worry about exams in the middle of all of this is like… I can't even find words. Just stay safe, man.
Thanks for the update. I hope you and your family are able to stay safe throughout all this and that you are able to pass your exams. A few days ago I finished reading Persepolis and reading your...
Thanks for the update. I hope you and your family are able to stay safe throughout all this and that you are able to pass your exams.
A few days ago I finished reading Persepolis and reading your post feels like an updated version of that. Hell some of the things you mentioned are exactly the same as in the comic. I mention this only because that comic even though it is only one persons perspective of the situation really provided much needed context for me on whats going on in Iran and how things are there.
Thank you, i'm trying to download it right now (with 30kbps), never heard of it before. And thank you for the kind words. i can't think of much else i can do, so i'm glad this did something,...
Thank you, i'm trying to download it right now (with 30kbps), never heard of it before.
And thank you for the kind words. i can't think of much else i can do, so i'm glad this did something, however small
I was surprised to there wasn't a thread on Tildes yet about the news of ongoing protests happening in Iran. It seems that these things happen every few years but that this time appears to be...
I was surprised to there wasn't a thread on Tildes yet about the news of ongoing protests happening in Iran. It seems that these things happen every few years but that this time appears to be different.
A user's analysis I saw elsewhere pointed out one thing different with this protest from past major protests. I don't know if it's true or not, since I don't know enough about Iranian protests of...
A user's analysis I saw elsewhere pointed out one thing different with this protest from past major protests. I don't know if it's true or not, since I don't know enough about Iranian protests of the past. Other just hearing about them.
But the user pointed out -- or at least western media seems to be repeating -- that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, being closer to the center of these protests. The few articles I've seen keep do referencing Pahlavi and crowds chanting in support of and calling for the crown prince.
Anyone closer to the ground here have any insight into this? Is there widespread support for the return of the the monarchy? Even if the monarch is just a figurehead going forward?
I recently met an Iranian woman who emigrated 10 years ago but was a pro-democracy activist. I was not aware of there being a pro-monarchy crowd at all, and she informed me that when it comes to...
Exemplary
I recently met an Iranian woman who emigrated 10 years ago but was a pro-democracy activist. I was not aware of there being a pro-monarchy crowd at all, and she informed me that when it comes to the opposition to the regime, right now the pro-monarchy people are the loudest. According to her, they are numerically the minority, but are leading the protests right now.
It makes her very sad, because it replaces one despot with another.
I've seen at least one video with shots of protesting crowds where the original audio was clearly changed to crowds shouting Pahlavi's name. So expect propaganda. Some of his support surely is...
But the user pointed out -- or at least western media seems to be repeating -- that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, being closer to the center of these protests. The few articles I've seen keep do referencing Pahlavi and crowds chanting in support of and calling for the crown prince.
I've seen at least one video with shots of protesting crowds where the original audio was clearly changed to crowds shouting Pahlavi's name. So expect propaganda. Some of his support surely is legitimate, but I think that at this moment it is impossible to say how much.
Take the following with a grain of salt: From a bit by a local journalist with some knowledge of Iranian society (though it is not his main specialization) it sounds like a large portion of people is fed up with the totalitarian regime, but their ideas on what work would have to be done to build a democracy are often naive or non-existent and there's no real opposition or dissent ready to do the work, so some are turning towards monarchy simply because it's an option that exists and seems better than the current one.
A bit of a sidenote, I don't think that the situation in some eastern european countries during the fall of communism was much better with regards to being naive and not having plans and they all turned out better than before, so the above may not be as bad as it sounds.
This is mostly speculation because not enough information is coming out now: The protests are not nearly as big as twitter may make them seem, if you look at serious reports, they're don't seem to...
This is mostly speculation because not enough information is coming out now:
The protests are not nearly as big as twitter may make them seem, if you look at serious reports, they're don't seem to be getting larger, and unfortunately part of them were night time riots, which most of the population is not happy about and the regime of course used that.
Many of the videos on twitter are either repeated videos from a few days ago with changed audio, or protests from a different country altogether.
The apparent support to Pahlavi seems to be coming from outside and from twitter more than from the bottom in Iran itself. Not implying that monarchy would be good, but there aren't really any alternatives willing to take responsibility either so far.
There is a lot of vocal outside support online, but Iranians living abroad are out of touch with the society and as for foreign interventions, ordinary Iranians may hate the regime, but they are often also quite nationalistic and against any forms of foreign intervention.
So at this moment I don't see a regime change happening.
CBS is reporting a possible death toll between 12,000 and 20,000. It seems equally possible to me that this claim is completely true or that it's manufactured to sell a regime-change war, which is...
CBS is reporting a possible death toll between 12,000 and 20,000. It seems equally possible to me that this claim is completely true or that it's manufactured to sell a regime-change war, which is a horrifying state of affairs.
Edit: for the sake of completeness, I should note that Reuters, BBC, and AP News are all reporting the figure of "over 2000" deaths.
... I just remembered we have a user from Iran, @slabs37. He mentioned he lived in Karaj, and I found this article confirming that Karaj specifically had a lot of protests that erupted into mass...
Hello hello! The government currently is trickling the internet connectivity, I got like a few mins of connection. Personally I'm doing... I've been on the verge of crying for two weeks. I was...
Exemplary
Hello hello! The government currently is trickling the internet connectivity, I got like a few mins of connection.
Personally I'm doing... I've been on the verge of crying for two weeks.
I was kinda caught up? Was extremely cautious and ran as soon as the sounds of bullets came. Listening from the roof of my house it sounded like a battle field one night.
I can't express how.. happy? Sad happy? I am that you remembered me, thank you, thank you <3
From the state of cemeteries just around me, and talks I've had with friends from here and there, 20k is absolutely a better guess (a city miyaneh with 100k population has had 450 people disappear, in some places of it the house prices have dropped astronomically low because of the screams at night, of the captured people)
Editing to say more things on my mind:
On the first days of protests we had a day off electricity being cut and half a day off water being cut.
Having things that supposed to be always there be pulled because you have an opinion is... I don't want anyone to experience this. Ever.
Also the government is playing with people's hopes, every single night there's "news" of "internet will be fixed tomorrow" but this is the first time I've had international access, I genuinely don't know if this stays or goes but at the same time I know this will go, that they are too inhumane to let this stay, it feels like it's just trickling it so people are less discontent.
In the comments of news websites people are talking with each other, all intranet messaging apps were blocked and still kinda are, people used app reviews to talk to each other (myket), news websites (zoomit) to just talk, as limited as it may be.
From there i know a lot of people have had some time off internet being connected and they've used it to search Instagram, and have gotten depressed at what they've seen,I just want to talk with friends but the services I use for that (telegram discord) are filtered still, and none of my VPNs work even now.
Over the past few days they had google.com and for whatever reason chatgpt.com open, I've been using chatgpt web search to at least check some places, once again I really really do not wish for anyone to be stuck in this one way communication that we've been stuck in.
DNS servers! ah god DNS servers are a pain, all the normal ones are cut and for a ton of people they have no access to even intranet sites unless they manually set one that works (shecan.ir) which they don't know how.
also for some reason 192.168.1.1 as a DNS works everywhere?? still haven't figured that one out.
I miss Jetlag, still can't watch UK ep 4 and 5, and every other series I was following.
GOOGLE COLAB WHY HAVE YOU SANCTIONED US?! WE COULD'VE HAD ACCESS since all sites ending in *google.com open
I feel I must apologize for this ranty comment I know this isn't tildes etique, I have a lot of things to say and barely any site loads, with these speeds rn text only is the best, sorry.
Edit at 2:50pm : still connected, i'm afraid to hope
Edit at 3:10pm : got in to discord, have cried. Y'all are the best for being so worried. Thank you
Edit at 3:40pm : might really be connected for a while now, till the next thing happens.
Edit at 5:20pm : after the feels i sat and just stared into the distance for a while, then slept. I don't have the deep sadness anymore, but still a long way from feeling normal
(Edited again to remove some words)
So happy you've made it through this horrifying chaos safely! Thank you for your bravery and persistence in reporting the situation to us. I'm sorry to say that you shouldn't look to the U.S. for...
So happy you've made it through this horrifying chaos safely! Thank you for your bravery and persistence in reporting the situation to us.
I'm sorry to say that you shouldn't look to the U.S. for anything like a durable rescue from the Iranian state apparatus. Our orange dictator doesn't have the attention span or the legal mandate to do anything but strike (without regard for civilian safety) and run, so that he can declare he "won" to his media lackeys.
Please take care of yourself and your loved ones - getting rid of authoritarians is a generational struggle, not accomplished overnight.
<3 I already know that he's not one we should be looking at for help. The EU took 20 says to get out of 'holiday festive' mode from what i see, i don't blame them, i hope they do something but...
<3
I already know that he's not one we should be looking at for help.
The EU took 20 says to get out of 'holiday festive' mode from what i see, i don't blame them, i hope they do something but feel like they wont.
Staying safe is very deeply ingrained in me and my family, i know saying that is the most that you can do there and i appreciate it very very much, stay safe aswell ok? Wherever you are
I look forward to the day i can post about and talk about fun and exciting things without this storm cloud above me
(Edited to remove some words)
You posted this around the time I went to bed (my sleep schedule is really messed up), so this was the first thing I saw after waking up. Seeing your name made me instantly smile and was a great...
You posted this around the time I went to bed (my sleep schedule is really messed up), so this was the first thing I saw after waking up. Seeing your name made me instantly smile and was a great start to the day.
No need to apologize for the ranty/rambly comment, I don't think anyone minds given everything that's happened. I think Tildes is actually pretty forgiving about that in general, so long as comments aren't spam. Even if we WERE strict about it though... Well, you've more than earned the right to be an exception.
Besides that, hearing the direct perspective of someone inside Iran (or any other similar situation) is incredibly rare and invaluable. News reports can't really capture the details of day-to-day life for an average person living it. The idea of people using comments and reviews to communicate is wild, but makes sense with how limited everything is. Related, you have a site listed in your bio that isn't working, and I'm guessing that's because of the government messing with the internet/intranet.
I'm glad you were able to get on Discord eventually and contact friends. As I was reading your comment I was thinking of offering to reach out on your behalf before I reached that edit. Since Tildes loads more easily (and is less likely to be specifically blocked by the government), maybe you can send invites to some friends or family just to stay in touch? Particularly anyone who lives outside Iran.
Again, I was just really relieved to see you reply. We've never talked, but Tildes is a pretty tight-knit community so I feel a bit of a connection to everyone here just because we all use this site. That's one of the things I appreciate about this place.
I don't know if your internet is still up and you'll be able to see this message (and even if it is, you might be asleep now), but if you need to talk, I and plenty of others are willing to listen! Whether it's venting or just talking about something totally unrelated to take your mind off things for even a little bit. Post as many ranty and rambly comments as you want, I and everyone else will be here.
Thank you Apple! inviting them wouldn't have helped much, internet is more open but blocked at the same time, one or two VPN are working and we still need them to access anything other than...
Thank you Apple! inviting them wouldn't have helped much, internet is more open but blocked at the same time, one or two VPN are working and we still need them to access anything other than google. it's still a good idea tho, thanks for the offer, thank you.
12000-20000 is an unimaginable number. Even 2000 in a week, of one's own citizens, is absolutely insane. The CBS says police are intimidating hospitals into giving them injured lists, for further...
12000-20000 is an unimaginable number. Even 2000 in a week, of one's own citizens, is absolutely insane. The CBS says police are intimidating hospitals into giving them injured lists, for further retaliation. How can a government lock down an entire population forever?
Significantly too. The crackdown they announced seems to have been a shoot to kill crackdown. It's likely very rough out there and will be for a while. Besides the physical danger they're in,...
Significantly too. The crackdown they announced seems to have been a shoot to kill crackdown. It's likely very rough out there and will be for a while. Besides the physical danger they're in, they're also still very much out of water.
As much as I despise Trump, I find his (well, most likely Marco Rubio's) approach to regime change in Venezuela interesting because: It was relatively bloodless and had almost no civilian...
As much as I despise Trump, I find his (well, most likely Marco Rubio's) approach to regime change in Venezuela interesting because:
It was relatively bloodless and had almost no civilian casualties.
They did not invade or dismantle the government. Instead they kept existing institutions intact, preventing destabilization of the country. Interestingly, they disempowered an incompetent leader and empowered someone competent: Delcy Rodriguez. This is a radically different, realist approach from past US approaches that'd try to replace a government outright.
Rodriguez is a socialist minister who has been implementing limited market reforms that have helped to somewhat stabilize Venezuela in recent years. Now that she's empowered, she might have a freer hand at implementing market reforms and stabilizing the country further, alleviating the refugee crisis.
Now with Iran, the IRGC is bloodily trying to put down protests. Without assistance, anti-government forces face a very bloody path to overthrowing the government. At this point, regime change seems inevitable: the government has lost the most crucial pillar of legitimacy: the economic pillar, in addition to the social pillar. Now the question is: how many Iranian lives will be expended to achieve regime change?
Limited military intervention—strikes on IRGC and state security sites—by the US and its allies could accelerate the process and reduce the government's ability to violently suppress protesters, thereby saving tens of thousands of lives.
It is easy for us to say, "well, the Iranian people must decide for themselves, we cannot intervene!" The process of "deciding for themselves" is messy and never purely organic. We must remember that the American Revolution would have been impossible if not for the financial and material assistance of France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
I'm not sure what you mean by "a majority of [civilians] have enabled that horrible government for 45 years". Iran went from a repressive monarchy to a repressive theocratic autocracy with...
I'm not sure what you mean by "a majority of [civilians] have enabled that horrible government for 45 years".
Iran went from a repressive monarchy to a repressive theocratic autocracy with Ayatollah Khomeini or his appointed successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, in power for that entire period. There's never been a point where Iranian citizens had the opportunity to give meaningful consent to their situation. Any liberalizing tendencies have been violently suppressed - opposition figures exiled, jailed, and executed, protestors shot in the streets. Questioning the Supreme Leader and the Islamic State's divinely appointed role is legally treated as apostasy, punishable by death.
I say this as a deeply ashamed U.S. citizen... People who haven't lived under repressive regimes have no place damning the people who have to live there for failing to resist, when the penalties they face are deprivation, torture, and mass slaughter. History has plenty of examples of monarchs and dictators who massacred or starved a significant portion of the populace and still remained in power. Until their nation failed due to outside conquest or military revolt and civil war.
If you're talking about the 1979 revolution: We have a good family friend who was studying here in the US when that happened. The story I have always been told is that the new regime began...
If you're talking about the 1979 revolution:
We have a good family friend who was studying here in the US when that happened. The story I have always been told is that the new regime began specifically targeting people who were educated in the west, among others due to being too westernized. He was not a political activist, but if he went back when his visa ended, he would have most likely been killed. Correction at the bottom.
His saving grace was that he studied computer science, a very niche field at the time; and someone my mom knew was pissed at the US government for some reason. That person specifically created a job with conditions only he could fulfill partially to spite the US. If not for that, he may very well have been another digit in the statistics on that page.
One other thing I have always been told: he had an uncle around his age who was a police officer in Iran. He was among many police officers executed due to having sworn loyalty to the previous Shah. I do not know if he was a particularly fervent supporter, or had followed orders to try to handle protests during the revolution, or had just sworn loyalty as a routine part of becoming an officer. But I have always been told that police officers all over the country were executed because of that oath.
Those two factors set the tone for the rest of the regime. If they violently executed and tortured people in the first few years after the revolution (which, according to the above link, included an 11-year-old and 15-year-old), then that paints a bleak picture of any other attempts to oppose the government in any fashion. Just read the Wikipedia article on the 1988 mass executions. Or the lengthy page on political repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the lengthy page on human rights issues in Iran. It has separate pages for the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (the current regime), and the second one is considerably longer than the first.
My point: "enabling" makes it sound like the people were fine with the government and did nothing to oppose it. But in reality, the majority of civilians had extremely limited options because opposition was repeatedly met with death. Peaceful movements can't gain traction in that environment, whether it be protests or trying to enter politics to change it from the inside. The only options I can see with any chance of success are to violently overthrow the current regime via terrorist acts, military coups, or to wait for national unrest to reach a fever peak so that the government is vastly outnumbered by its people.
It's like saying the average Parisian "enabled" Nazi Germans by not carrying out guerilla warfare en masse. The vast majority of people want to survive, and I cannot fault an entire population for choosing individual survival and safety over turning their country—their homes—into an active warzone. For wanting to NOT incentivize their government to carry out yet another genocide.
That said, please tell me: what other options could they have exercised to avoid "enabling" the government?
--
Minor edit and correction, in case anyone sees: I have since confirmed that our family friend DID participate by singing at many protests in the US. So he was, in fact, an activist and was on the Iranian government's radar and would have likely been killed upon returning. For singing. One of the most peaceful protest avenues of all. All other details are accurate, and I stand by my point.
The comment I replied to is gone, but I wanted to get this on record for accuracy's sake. Even participating in peaceful protests overseas was a potential death sentence. There was little ANYONE inside the country could do to oppose the government without risking their lives, and not many people have the strength needed to take those risks.
I'm gonna write down as much as I remember from the days
Currently I've managed to snag a VPN that uses google.com as the SNI, cities near the capital and capital are completely disconnected right now and they're getting redirected to an IP 217.218.86.27, I'm in another city for university right now. I have EXAMS and no one that I've talked to has managed to study, here's to hoping I don't fail anything this semester :)
On Jan 8 we all had heard the Shah's call for protests and my family was waiting to see if anyone would do that chant from home, a few people did, it started with one woman chanting her heart out from her balcony and others joined in.
After a while we decided to go out and check out if anythings happening outside since internet was cut. The entire city was in the streets, the protesters where pouring fuel under cameras and setting them alight.
We returned home.
The next day afternoon we went for a walk and it was a ghost town, the busiest streets were now empty, if the night before hadn't shown how big things are this time, seeing the city like that did.
That night before going out I was on the roof top, I was hearing bullets, machine guns, I saw big flashes of light lighting up the clouds from different sides of the city every 10 minutes or so, and I still don't know what they were.
After a while we went out, close by or home for safety, and there were so many people, there were groups of protesters coming from different sides, but none of them had a goal, it was just chanting and moving to random places.
The moment we saw flared bullets (the bullets that have a red flare thing behind them) in the sky and heard the sound of guns we ran, I hoped it was all shooting in the air to instill fear, but alas it wasn't.
We returned home and saw that the electricity's cut off, with great sadness and little battery I read story books that night
The next morning and night i personally didn't go out cause our apartment had a pipe burst on the fourth floor and we were fixing it, so none of our 4 floors went out.
The next days I really don't remember much.
Phone lines and land lines and sms and every way of communication was cut. People were talking in app reviews in internal app markets, until they cut it off. They were talking in game apps that allow short messages to opponents, until it got cut. In so many places, until they all got cut.
Over the days phone calls opened up, then much later sms.
There is a cemetery close ish to my home, I was passing by in the afternoon and I saw hundreds of people there, there was no slave left for standing, there were people crying and people chanting the same slogans that we had in protests. There's also news of them taking 1 billion tomans for returning the bodies of the dead people.
university guys who I talk to (intern doctors) told me about the state of hospitals, in a city of 200k population there were people who were shot, beaten up, stabbed, and afterwards whipped while they were bleeding. And then let go and brought to the hospital. They were out of space the first night, the guys weren't at the hospital anymore on the second or third day, for their own sake
A day when phones were open I was talking to friends and there was news that the government guys are knocking down doors and taking satellite dishes. my downstairs neighbor had a friend in the city that they had knocked down their door, and was staying with them for a little.
One day I called some friends and we went to each other's houses (all before 2pm, didn't dare be in streets much those days), and we hit a problem of not having internet for a lot of things, I luckily have tons of backups on different hard drives and we ended up playing Split Fiction while talking
On Jan 15 my family decided to go visit my grandmother in a smaller city. With no internet we couldn't check the weather and wouldn't you know, the streets are ice and the car kept slipping, was a dangerous way but we made it.
On the night I called a friend who's still in Karaj and I got the news that Tehran has been emptied, the previous night Trump had said that something will happen in 24 hours, so millions had gotten out of Tehran.
Nothing happened.
People returned over the next few days, but they had all hoped
While we were at my grandma's news websites said that by next week we will have fixed the internet! The next week came and what they think is the internet was actually just google.com and chatgpt.com. I spent a lot of hours seeing the titles of the news, trying to get the contents of them using chatgpt. My sadness only increased at receiving this one way communication. It was something but....
They are called terrorists by the government, however many people aren't government or any of the groups were calling them terrorists, everywhere, in sms', even internal kids tv channels.
I managed to take my mind off of things a day by going sledding, was the first time in aaalot of years that we had this much snow anywhere in the country.
Over there it's a city where almost everyone knows everyone else, on the day of protests there weren't many casualties, but the day after when people returned to work the next day they were taken, the people themselves estimated 450 people are missing.
In the city it seems like there's a... Something under a public park, all the houses around it are for sale, the families there can't sleep because of the screams of torture at night
And then there's the stories of them going to hospitals and shooting people in the head while they were hospitalized. I've heard there's a picture of a man shot in the forehead while he still had the ECG leads on his chest. Tear gasses in hospitals, taking the phones of hospital staff by force. Nightmarish stuff.
We returned back to Karaj after a week, nothing had changed much, the need to know the news kept gnawing at you and never let you focus on anything.
Playing Beat saber I couldn't ever focus for too long, just going through the list of songs I had immense feeling of sadness that I may never get anything newer. I was sad at the albums I hadn't downloaded. The movies I hadn't. At the series I could no longer follow.
The sadness stayed with me wherever, whenever.
Every few nights they would put up a news of "internet will be connected tomorrow" and the next day delete them, no one believed them, comments were always negative and depressing, they were about our life. Of not being able to support a life no matter how many jobs or professions, and now we can't have the small escape either? Let alone the people who made their living money online.
Then I got news that my university doesn't have the infrastructure to do online exams, so we have to come physically for exams. NO ONE HAS STUDIED but we gotta give the end of semester exams.
The next day I was gonna study on the bus to dormitory but then they connected the internet for a short while...
Don't think anyone can study. Other universities have delayed their exams by another two weeks, mine hasn't
Edit: typos
VPN crackdown is insane right now.
There are massive groups in Telegram trying to find ways of staying connected, some groups providing VPN configurations have 1.2M people atm
Stories i heard about what happened in Neyshabur
A three year old girl each day standing near the door every day for a week for her mom to "return from a vacation"
Killed Sunday in broad daylight afternoon on Sunday 11 Jan
A friends group separated by tear gas at the protests on Jan 8, with tear gasses burning their skin, they each went home at different times relieved to see each other. One friend didn't come, they hoped she went to her own home, they couldn't call or check up on any way. Multiple days later a neighbor brought them the news. She was shot in the middle of the forehead that night.
On the funeral the mourners were attacked, they tried to take the dead girls phone from her parents. She broke the phone on her gravestone before they could take it. The people crushed the basijies at the funeral.
An elderly man who goes to see what the sounds are, shot dead at his front door within moments of opening it.
A healthcare worker getting of the bus and getting shot in the heart 10 Jan afternoon, before protests
In hospitals where they were treating the wounded, a woman coming for her own teenage son's wounds (also from protests) and screaming at everyone to help her son instead of the Terrorists. Calling the forces upon the hospital when they didn't. They took the healing supplies only returning them when it was one of them that needed healing. No morphine for the Terrorists, only for themselves
A person who's home was in the center of the city where protests were happening was giving them refuge on Jan 9.
They had a girl come crying her heart out. Wailing about his brothers death. He had his final breaths in her hands.
After calming down she went back out and wanted to avenge him.
The next morning there was a gun shot Infront of this person's home. Their son was killed Infront of their home and the killers were laughing while leaving.
A university classmate who has had people die around her, blood splatting on her. Now two weeks later giving exams and trying to keep it together until the end of exams before breaking down.
And me personally, i've been spending hours and hours trying to connect to the internet, barely managing to focus on studying
AND MY WEBSITE IS DOWN I HAD RENEWED IT LAST MONTH WHY IS A SERVER IN GERMANY DOWN ANd it doesn't matter anyway...
I'll give one good news aswell, i managed to upload my Beatsaber map yesterday (its a little 3d art project if you will), now trying to get a video of it on youtube x)
Thank you for sharing. This is horrifying to read and the fact you still have to worry about exams in the middle of all of this is like… I can't even find words. Just stay safe, man.
I know right :]
Thank you for the kind words, y'all stay safe aswell ok? And just enjoy life
Thanks for the update. I hope you and your family are able to stay safe throughout all this and that you are able to pass your exams.
A few days ago I finished reading Persepolis and reading your post feels like an updated version of that. Hell some of the things you mentioned are exactly the same as in the comic. I mention this only because that comic even though it is only one persons perspective of the situation really provided much needed context for me on whats going on in Iran and how things are there.
Thank you, i'm trying to download it right now (with 30kbps), never heard of it before.
And thank you for the kind words. i can't think of much else i can do, so i'm glad this did something, however small
I was surprised to there wasn't a thread on Tildes yet about the news of ongoing protests happening in Iran. It seems that these things happen every few years but that this time appears to be different.
See also: 'In isolation, we’ll never flourish': What Iranians think about the protests and an end to the Islamic Republic for interviews with citizens that Guardian conducted.
A user's analysis I saw elsewhere pointed out one thing different with this protest from past major protests. I don't know if it's true or not, since I don't know enough about Iranian protests of the past. Other just hearing about them.
But the user pointed out -- or at least western media seems to be repeating -- that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, being closer to the center of these protests. The few articles I've seen keep do referencing Pahlavi and crowds chanting in support of and calling for the crown prince.
Anyone closer to the ground here have any insight into this? Is there widespread support for the return of the the monarchy? Even if the monarch is just a figurehead going forward?
I recently met an Iranian woman who emigrated 10 years ago but was a pro-democracy activist. I was not aware of there being a pro-monarchy crowd at all, and she informed me that when it comes to the opposition to the regime, right now the pro-monarchy people are the loudest. According to her, they are numerically the minority, but are leading the protests right now.
It makes her very sad, because it replaces one despot with another.
I've seen at least one video with shots of protesting crowds where the original audio was clearly changed to crowds shouting Pahlavi's name. So expect propaganda. Some of his support surely is legitimate, but I think that at this moment it is impossible to say how much.
Take the following with a grain of salt: From a bit by a local journalist with some knowledge of Iranian society (though it is not his main specialization) it sounds like a large portion of people is fed up with the totalitarian regime, but their ideas on what work would have to be done to build a democracy are often naive or non-existent and there's no real opposition or dissent ready to do the work, so some are turning towards monarchy simply because it's an option that exists and seems better than the current one.
A bit of a sidenote, I don't think that the situation in some eastern european countries during the fall of communism was much better with regards to being naive and not having plans and they all turned out better than before, so the above may not be as bad as it sounds.
According to the BBC there's a nationwide internet blackout so it may be difficult for any Irani members of Tildes to share.
Ah yes, internet blackouts, in 2025 that proved to be the surefire way to get your government toppled. Let's see if 2026 holds true.
This is mostly speculation because not enough information is coming out now:
The protests are not nearly as big as twitter may make them seem, if you look at serious reports, they're don't seem to be getting larger, and unfortunately part of them were night time riots, which most of the population is not happy about and the regime of course used that.
Many of the videos on twitter are either repeated videos from a few days ago with changed audio, or protests from a different country altogether.
The apparent support to Pahlavi seems to be coming from outside and from twitter more than from the bottom in Iran itself. Not implying that monarchy would be good, but there aren't really any alternatives willing to take responsibility either so far.
There is a lot of vocal outside support online, but Iranians living abroad are out of touch with the society and as for foreign interventions, ordinary Iranians may hate the regime, but they are often also quite nationalistic and against any forms of foreign intervention.
So at this moment I don't see a regime change happening.
They are giant. Every where in the country was protests, and even with the high high chance of death there are still some protests in big cities.
Thanks a lot for your information! Yeah, that was based on information that was available at that point.
CBS is reporting a possible death toll between 12,000 and 20,000. It seems equally possible to me that this claim is completely true or that it's manufactured to sell a regime-change war, which is a horrifying state of affairs.
Edit: for the sake of completeness, I should note that Reuters, BBC, and AP News are all reporting the figure of "over 2000" deaths.
...
I just remembered we have a user from Iran, @slabs37. He mentioned he lived in Karaj, and I found this article confirming that Karaj specifically had a lot of protests that erupted into mass killings on Saturday. That article includes an account from a woman who got caught up in the attack on Saturday and fled the country, and it's pretty harrowing.
I've never spoken to him, but my chest is actually a bit heavy right now. I really hope he wasn't caught up in this.
Hello hello! The government currently is trickling the internet connectivity, I got like a few mins of connection.
Personally I'm doing... I've been on the verge of crying for two weeks.
I was kinda caught up? Was extremely cautious and ran as soon as the sounds of bullets came. Listening from the roof of my house it sounded like a battle field one night.
I can't express how.. happy? Sad happy? I am that you remembered me, thank you, thank you <3
From the state of cemeteries just around me, and talks I've had with friends from here and there, 20k is absolutely a better guess (a city miyaneh with 100k population has had 450 people disappear, in some places of it the house prices have dropped astronomically low because of the screams at night, of the captured people)
Editing to say more things on my mind:
On the first days of protests we had a day off electricity being cut and half a day off water being cut.
Having things that supposed to be always there be pulled because you have an opinion is... I don't want anyone to experience this. Ever.
Also the government is playing with people's hopes, every single night there's "news" of "internet will be fixed tomorrow" but this is the first time I've had international access, I genuinely don't know if this stays or goes but at the same time I know this will go, that they are too inhumane to let this stay, it feels like it's just trickling it so people are less discontent.
In the comments of news websites people are talking with each other, all intranet messaging apps were blocked and still kinda are, people used app reviews to talk to each other (myket), news websites (zoomit) to just talk, as limited as it may be.
From there i know a lot of people have had some time off internet being connected and they've used it to search Instagram, and have gotten depressed at what they've seen,I just want to talk with friends but the services I use for that (telegram discord) are filtered still, and none of my VPNs work even now.
Over the past few days they had google.com and for whatever reason chatgpt.com open, I've been using chatgpt web search to at least check some places, once again I really really do not wish for anyone to be stuck in this one way communication that we've been stuck in.
DNS servers! ah god DNS servers are a pain, all the normal ones are cut and for a ton of people they have no access to even intranet sites unless they manually set one that works (shecan.ir) which they don't know how.
also for some reason 192.168.1.1 as a DNS works everywhere?? still haven't figured that one out.
I miss Jetlag, still can't watch UK ep 4 and 5, and every other series I was following.
GOOGLE COLAB WHY HAVE YOU SANCTIONED US?! WE COULD'VE HAD ACCESS since all sites ending in *google.com open
I feel I must apologize for this ranty comment I know this isn't tildes etique, I have a lot of things to say and barely any site loads, with these speeds rn text only is the best, sorry.
Edit at 2:50pm : still connected, i'm afraid to hope
Edit at 3:10pm : got in to discord, have cried. Y'all are the best for being so worried. Thank you
Edit at 3:40pm : might really be connected for a while now, till the next thing happens.
Edit at 5:20pm : after the feels i sat and just stared into the distance for a while, then slept. I don't have the deep sadness anymore, but still a long way from feeling normal
(Edited again to remove some words)
So happy you've made it through this horrifying chaos safely! Thank you for your bravery and persistence in reporting the situation to us.
I'm sorry to say that you shouldn't look to the U.S. for anything like a durable rescue from the Iranian state apparatus. Our orange dictator doesn't have the attention span or the legal mandate to do anything but strike (without regard for civilian safety) and run, so that he can declare he "won" to his media lackeys.
Please take care of yourself and your loved ones - getting rid of authoritarians is a generational struggle, not accomplished overnight.
<3
I already know that he's not one we should be looking at for help.
The EU took 20 says to get out of 'holiday festive' mode from what i see, i don't blame them, i hope they do something but feel like they wont.
Staying safe is very deeply ingrained in me and my family, i know saying that is the most that you can do there and i appreciate it very very much, stay safe aswell ok? Wherever you are
I look forward to the day i can post about and talk about fun and exciting things without this storm cloud above me
(Edited to remove some words)
You posted this around the time I went to bed (my sleep schedule is really messed up), so this was the first thing I saw after waking up. Seeing your name made me instantly smile and was a great start to the day.
No need to apologize for the ranty/rambly comment, I don't think anyone minds given everything that's happened. I think Tildes is actually pretty forgiving about that in general, so long as comments aren't spam. Even if we WERE strict about it though... Well, you've more than earned the right to be an exception.
Besides that, hearing the direct perspective of someone inside Iran (or any other similar situation) is incredibly rare and invaluable. News reports can't really capture the details of day-to-day life for an average person living it. The idea of people using comments and reviews to communicate is wild, but makes sense with how limited everything is. Related, you have a site listed in your bio that isn't working, and I'm guessing that's because of the government messing with the internet/intranet.
I'm glad you were able to get on Discord eventually and contact friends. As I was reading your comment I was thinking of offering to reach out on your behalf before I reached that edit. Since Tildes loads more easily (and is less likely to be specifically blocked by the government), maybe you can send invites to some friends or family just to stay in touch? Particularly anyone who lives outside Iran.
Again, I was just really relieved to see you reply. We've never talked, but Tildes is a pretty tight-knit community so I feel a bit of a connection to everyone here just because we all use this site. That's one of the things I appreciate about this place.
I don't know if your internet is still up and you'll be able to see this message (and even if it is, you might be asleep now), but if you need to talk, I and plenty of others are willing to listen! Whether it's venting or just talking about something totally unrelated to take your mind off things for even a little bit. Post as many ranty and rambly comments as you want, I and everyone else will be here.
Thank you Apple! inviting them wouldn't have helped much, internet is more open but blocked at the same time, one or two VPN are working and we still need them to access anything other than google. it's still a good idea tho, thanks for the offer, thank you.
I hope he's okay. I hope everyone's okay. .... Everyone.
12000-20000 is an unimaginable number. Even 2000 in a week, of one's own citizens, is absolutely insane. The CBS says police are intimidating hospitals into giving them injured lists, for further retaliation. How can a government lock down an entire population forever?
Looks lilke a couple days after I looked up the above fragments of information the situation has changed. Terrible.
Significantly too. The crackdown they announced seems to have been a shoot to kill crackdown. It's likely very rough out there and will be for a while. Besides the physical danger they're in, they're also still very much out of water.
As much as I despise Trump, I find his (well, most likely Marco Rubio's) approach to regime change in Venezuela interesting because:
It was relatively bloodless and had almost no civilian casualties.
They did not invade or dismantle the government. Instead they kept existing institutions intact, preventing destabilization of the country. Interestingly, they disempowered an incompetent leader and empowered someone competent: Delcy Rodriguez. This is a radically different, realist approach from past US approaches that'd try to replace a government outright.
Rodriguez is a socialist minister who has been implementing limited market reforms that have helped to somewhat stabilize Venezuela in recent years. Now that she's empowered, she might have a freer hand at implementing market reforms and stabilizing the country further, alleviating the refugee crisis.
Now with Iran, the IRGC is bloodily trying to put down protests. Without assistance, anti-government forces face a very bloody path to overthrowing the government. At this point, regime change seems inevitable: the government has lost the most crucial pillar of legitimacy: the economic pillar, in addition to the social pillar. Now the question is: how many Iranian lives will be expended to achieve regime change?
Limited military intervention—strikes on IRGC and state security sites—by the US and its allies could accelerate the process and reduce the government's ability to violently suppress protesters, thereby saving tens of thousands of lives.
It is easy for us to say, "well, the Iranian people must decide for themselves, we cannot intervene!" The process of "deciding for themselves" is messy and never purely organic. We must remember that the American Revolution would have been impossible if not for the financial and material assistance of France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
I'm not sure what you mean by "a majority of [civilians] have enabled that horrible government for 45 years".
Iran went from a repressive monarchy to a repressive theocratic autocracy with Ayatollah Khomeini or his appointed successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, in power for that entire period. There's never been a point where Iranian citizens had the opportunity to give meaningful consent to their situation. Any liberalizing tendencies have been violently suppressed - opposition figures exiled, jailed, and executed, protestors shot in the streets. Questioning the Supreme Leader and the Islamic State's divinely appointed role is legally treated as apostasy, punishable by death.
I say this as a deeply ashamed U.S. citizen... People who haven't lived under repressive regimes have no place damning the people who have to live there for failing to resist, when the penalties they face are deprivation, torture, and mass slaughter. History has plenty of examples of monarchs and dictators who massacred or starved a significant portion of the populace and still remained in power. Until their nation failed due to outside conquest or military revolt and civil war.
If you're talking about the 1979 revolution:
We have a good family friend who was studying here in the US when that happened. The story I have always been told is that the new regime began specifically targeting people who were educated in the west, among others due to being too westernized.
He was not a political activist, but if he went back when his visa ended, he would have most likely been killed.Correction at the bottom.His saving grace was that he studied computer science, a very niche field at the time; and someone my mom knew was pissed at the US government for some reason. That person specifically created a job with conditions only he could fulfill partially to spite the US. If not for that, he may very well have been another digit in the statistics on that page.
One other thing I have always been told: he had an uncle around his age who was a police officer in Iran. He was among many police officers executed due to having sworn loyalty to the previous Shah. I do not know if he was a particularly fervent supporter, or had followed orders to try to handle protests during the revolution, or had just sworn loyalty as a routine part of becoming an officer. But I have always been told that police officers all over the country were executed because of that oath.
Those two factors set the tone for the rest of the regime. If they violently executed and tortured people in the first few years after the revolution (which, according to the above link, included an 11-year-old and 15-year-old), then that paints a bleak picture of any other attempts to oppose the government in any fashion. Just read the Wikipedia article on the 1988 mass executions. Or the lengthy page on political repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the lengthy page on human rights issues in Iran. It has separate pages for the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (the current regime), and the second one is considerably longer than the first.
My point: "enabling" makes it sound like the people were fine with the government and did nothing to oppose it. But in reality, the majority of civilians had extremely limited options because opposition was repeatedly met with death. Peaceful movements can't gain traction in that environment, whether it be protests or trying to enter politics to change it from the inside. The only options I can see with any chance of success are to violently overthrow the current regime via terrorist acts, military coups, or to wait for national unrest to reach a fever peak so that the government is vastly outnumbered by its people.
It's like saying the average Parisian "enabled" Nazi Germans by not carrying out guerilla warfare en masse. The vast majority of people want to survive, and I cannot fault an entire population for choosing individual survival and safety over turning their country—their homes—into an active warzone. For wanting to NOT incentivize their government to carry out yet another genocide.
That said, please tell me: what other options could they have exercised to avoid "enabling" the government?
--
Minor edit and correction, in case anyone sees: I have since confirmed that our family friend DID participate by singing at many protests in the US. So he was, in fact, an activist and was on the Iranian government's radar and would have likely been killed upon returning. For singing. One of the most peaceful protest avenues of all. All other details are accurate, and I stand by my point.
The comment I replied to is gone, but I wanted to get this on record for accuracy's sake. Even participating in peaceful protests overseas was a potential death sentence. There was little ANYONE inside the country could do to oppose the government without risking their lives, and not many people have the strength needed to take those risks.
What a repulsive thing to say.