Day five of the blackout and all I have left is writing. Today marks the second full day that our internet has been completely severed. Yesterday I went to a friend’s house and — according to satellite channels — NetBlocks confirmed that nationwide internet in Iran has been entirely cut off.
Only the very few who have Starlink remain connected. For the record: owning a satellite dish is technically a crime in Iran, but since so many people acquired them years ago, the rule is hardly enforced anymore. A large number of Iranian households have one. (Everyone except me, haha!)
P.S. I come from an extremely religious family. To the devout, satellite television means exposure to dancing and music — both Harams. My family fiercely opposed having a dish from the very beginning. After I left home and got internet access, I no longer saw the need for one. What a mistake that turned out to be.
On the other hand, possessing Starlink is a far graver offense — one that can carry the death penalty. Those who use it are accused of spying for America and Israel. The punishment is the noose.
The text suddenly grew so dark. Let’s move on. I was saying: with the internet gone I’m cut off from almost everything. I can only talk to my family by phone. My sister called to tell me she had finally found a trustworthy doctor to remove the pellets lodged inside and behind her ears. She cannot go to a hospital openly — the risk of arrest is too high — so through a relative who is himself part of the revolutionary people, she located a surgeon. Today she went to have the shot removed.
One pellet was buried deep. The doctor struggled to extract it, but thankfully it came out. She was in terrible pain. She said even the doctor himself was wounded — shotgun pellets had torn his own lips earlier.
Yesterday at my friend’s place, via satellite news, we learned there would be calls to take to the streets tonight at 6 p.m.
Family members kept phoning:
“Stay home tonight.”
And I answered every time:
“Of course I’m staying home. Do you think I’m crazy? Don’t worry about me!” … while quietly putting on my clothes and heading out the door.
I leave the main avenue and slip into the side streets. There aren’t as many people as last night. The forces, on the other hand, have multiplied a hundredfold. Tonight, they carry live firearms.
A sinister, suffocating dread hangs over everything. The city lights have been extinguished. Brutal silence presses down from all sides. Fear grips me.
I move from one alley to another until I reach the street where the demonstrations flared the night before. From both ends, groups of young men and women — dressed in black, faces masked — are silently advancing through the darkness, past shuttered shops, through a city that already feels like a necropolis.
They are heading toward the main boulevard. Suddenly two officers charge into the crowd, swinging batons and firing into the air. People scatter. Terror tightens its hold, yet I cannot bring myself to leave. Standing farther back, heart pounding from the furious warning shots tearing the sky apart, I watch. From a distance I see the panicked crowd break apart. Then — a car screeches to a halt beside them. A man leaps out, empty-handed, and rushes straight toward the armed officer, shouting at the top of his lungs:
“Let them go! Let them go! Don’t hit them! Don’t hit them!” …
“Dear God, don’t let him get shot. Dear God, save him.” I pray in my heart…
God… God…I whisper the words under my breath as I slowly back away.
How can unarmed people fight men armed to the teeth? I know tonight will be ugly. I was terrified — and I understood this was no game. These same forces have killed people right in front of me before. I still see the bodies, blood dripping, being dragged across the asphalt. That image has never faded; the nightmare has stalked me for twenty years.
Unlike last night — tear gas and pellet shotguns — tonight they have come with lethal live rounds. Countless military units have flooded the streets. Last night’s wave of people clearly terrified them.
Now there is real fear they might lose the city. Every alley I turn into, small scattered groups of pedestrians are trying to reach the main road. But the sheer number of soldiers makes approaching madness. It feels as though they have received a shoot-to-kill order tonight. They have come to drown the streets in blood.
I tell myself: maybe I can circle behind the little bazaar and join the demonstrators on the main avenue from there. I’m certain I’ll find at least a small group and stand with them. So, I slip through a narrow, pitch-black passage behind the market.
The closer I get to the main street, the stranger it feels. I can see from here that unlike the rest of the city, that the boulevard is blindingly bright — and completely empty.
An eerie, throat-tightening unease seizes me. Shops are shuttered, yet the entire length of the road is flooded with light. Not a single movement. Something is very wrong. “What the hell is happening?”
To be continued…
(P.S. Internet is back — speeds are much better now. Yet for some reason this particular platform Publish0x remains harder to reach than others. I suspect it’s because we inside Iran must use VPNs to access it, and this site seems especially sensitive toward VPN connections. I’m active on other pages, but guys here have always treated me kindly. So — just like the past few years — I choose to stay. I know my words are bitter and my writing rarely comforting. I’m simply telling the truth as I see it. I can’t reply to comments anymore; the connection chokes whenever I try. So, I leave the answering to our compatriots abroad who have thrown themselves into the fight for a free Iran these days. This is a war we have been waging against this child-murdering, bloodthirsty regime for over forty years. Personally, I’ve been in it for twenty.)
We’re going to win.
One way or another, we win.
Dead or alive… we’re going to win.
And we will show the world exactly how humanity was butchered in the streets of Iran — and how the nightmare still walks with us.
Stay safe.
