As I write this, I have just learned of another death — the fifth in only a few days among people close to me. This time it was my friend’s cousin. He had gone to a protest with his wife. When he saw a green laser light settle on her face, he instinctively stepped in front of her. A shot rang out. He was struck in the face and killed.
Like so many grieving families, his relatives were forced to pay what people here bitterly call a “bullet fee” before the authorities would release his body. They paid 500 million tomans — about $5,000 — and buried him today. On the official death certificate, it does not even say he was shot. It reads: “impact of a sharp object to the face.”
Even in the middle of this horror, something feels different. There is a shared belief in the streets that this time, the regime may finally fall. You can sense it. You can hear it. Tehran has been full of people chanting for their rights, demanding an end to this system.
Last Thursday and Friday, the crowds were beyond anything I had ever seen. They were so large that even the police and the Revolutionary Guard seemed shocked. Tear gas, pepper spray, and sound bombs were fired to frighten people and break up the protests.
What moved me most was who was there. Parents brought their children. I saw pregnant women among the protesters, shouting for their rights. Elderly men and women stood shoulder to shoulder with young people. Suffering here has no age, and neither does the demand for change.
On Saturday, everything escalated. Anti-terror forces were deployed, and live ammunition was used. This regime is ruthless enough to kill unarmed people who are simply walking and chanting. I hear that more than 10,000 have been killed. And still, families are made to pay for the bullets that ended their loved ones’ lives.
Five people around me are dead. Three were friends of my cousin. Two were the sons of my mother’s friends. All were killed on the streets of Tehran for protesting what should be a basic human right: freedom.
Since the repression intensified, the protests are sometimes smaller. But people still go out, even though it is terrifying. We are almost completely cut off from the outside world. When satellites work, we glimpse the news. Otherwise, there is only silence. Police now enter homes to confiscate satellite dishes. My husband received a message saying he had been identified at a protest and was being monitored.
Drones have been used in some neighborhoods to identify people so they can be attacked. Most shops now close by 5 p.m. In a city that once stayed alive until midnight, this early darkness is deeply unsettling. Gangs in paramilitary uniforms roam some areas, smashing car windows and attacking drivers. A friend’s brother was badly injured and spent hours in surgery.
Life was already hard before the violence: soaring food prices, polluted air, water cutoffs at night. After 47 years of repression, environmental ruin, and isolation from the world, people feel there is nothing left to lose.
Today at Behesht Zahra cemetery, as more bodies arrived, people chanted “Death to the dictator” and saluted the young dead. Make no mistake: this is mass murder. We are hostages in our own country. But we still believe in a better future. We are fighting for our freedom.