Warning: readers might be shocked by the last video (below #7) in this story.
Do not click ‘play’ on the last video if you don’t want to see the outcomes of violence.
1. The last man standing
December 29 Tehran
Let’s start. We’re on the way to revolution once again. Could we succeed or not? The way is filled with hope and disappointment.
I can see all movements of Iran’s people for freedom and government of law on the long straight path of history, from constitutional revolution to the 1953 coup, to the 1979 revolution, to the crackdown on Tehran’s university in 1999, to the Green Movement, to all the clashes and brutal suppression in 2019–20, to the beautiful days of Zan Zendegi Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom). History looks back at me on the other side of this line, silently claiming: You can understand me with either your brain or your heart. Some people use this history and also mythology like a magic mirror, but the first picture is not about our past. It’s us, naked with bare hands. This is the story of humankind facing the banality of evil, trying to block its way.
We witness the story’s climax: when the last man standing decides to sit. He doesn’t fight back, he doesn’t run away, he chooses to sit and do nothing because he doesn’t have anything to lose, he doesn’t have anywhere to run. He decides to sit and block the banality of evil. Can we sit and block them through nonviolent civil disobedience?
2. No folk hero like Kaveh will ever rise, one can only hope for an Alexander instead
Hey Donald, I hate you. You remind me of Ahmadinezhad: a little man with a big trouble-maker mouth. So many people here like you, the same as when they liked Ahmadinezhad, or before that when they liked Khatami, or before that when they liked Khamenei or Khomeini, or even before that, with Reza Shah or Muhammadreza Shah. You have popularity, but it lasts until the consequences arrive; then people realize what a monster you are, and you know we are always living with direct consequences because we’re in the Middle East. We have 9/11 every day.
How dare you? Seriously, don’t you remember what the Islamic Republic did after the Soleimani operation? Don’t you remember how the Islamic Republic shot down the PS752 flight?
Don’t you understand that Khamenei thinks like Mao, he isn’t fucking scared of casualties. He doesn’t care about the number of people killed. The way Khamenei sees it, those are just numbers, and a good tool for punishment—scaring and encouragement. Killing his own people is Khamenei’s way of saying thanks to his loyal people. He divides the country against itself, and enemy by enemy he makes every voice attack its opposite. He just says “stamp on them,” like we’re cockroaches.
I bet you’re jealous of him. You’re definitely aiming to be crazy like him and have the same tools and dogs to do this kind of suppression.
There is an Akhavan-e Sales poem which says, “No folk hero like Kaveh will ever rise, one can only hope for an Alexander instead.” It is a cry for help which we all know can make anything worse but worse than what? No matter what, we’re screwed. We are going to be killed anyway.
3. Rice festival
Here is Ilam, a cold mountain province with the highest percentage of suicides. I’ve never seen Ilam in my life, but they say it’s beautiful, like so many other places on this planet that I couldn’t see because of my poverty.
Poverty is not a weird thing. I never go to sleep hungry, but over the years I see how my mum eats less food to feed everyone else in the house or how my father’s mouth has run out of teeth over the years. I learned how to live in poverty. Now after ten years of teaching and driving and working in people’s shops, I still can’t earn enough money to pay the rent.
Now imagine Ilam: there are fewer job opportunities. Smuggling is an official job, and death is always close there. Courage doesn’t have an on-switch; it’s just always on. Living near death can grow and train courage. Most people near borders are in constant struggle with an enemy, the government itself. It’s ridiculous that their own government is fighting against them, instead of making things right. Violence starts sooner in this wild chaos, as the government tries to mock people by paying us loose change: $7 to make things right for poor impoverished people who live near a border and who have had the highest percentage of suicides for many years. It is just like a bad joke. So what did those people do?
In the picture protesters reenact a traditional festival. January 6, Abdanan, Ilam. It was a cold night and something white was covering the ground. It is rice, and young protesters who covered their faces were grabbing fists full of rice and throwing it with pure joy.
We don’t want charity, we want our share of this wealthy country. The wealth which your kids are spending in Toronto, Paris, and London. We want the freedom that your kids have outside of this ruined country, a ruin which you make, instead of being killed by your wild morality police. We don’t want to be blinded because of bad homemade alcohol nor do we want to be blinded by your repression force anymore. We want to drink and dance on your graves and over your bloody bodies.
4. The suspicious shawarma place
The first time I went to the street to protest it was on Wed 7 January 2026. My girlfriend and I went to Narmak. We parked the car in a random alley. We set an alibi together—“we went shopping,” just in case of arrest. We found a newly opened shawarma place. It was suspicious because almost all shops were closed due to the unwritten martial law. Many shopkeepers told me that the government troops warned them that if they didn’t close it would cost a fortune for them. But we were hungry and nobody wanted to be arrested and hungry.
People start to honk. It always starts with continuous honking and the hot cashier girl said, “If honking could solve the problem, we would have no problem at all.” That she said this was just another red flag for me. We have been protesting for years, and we don’t have any leverage, so every harmless thing can represent our suppressed voice.
They gave us Syrian coffee. It was a really spicy thing. We heard several gunshots. The cashier girl went to the sidewalk, like a kid who wants to see the fireworks. We ate the shawarma nervously. We tried to calm each other down by speaking of irrelevant topics. “How was your day at work?” “What is the difference between shawarma and doner kebab?” and etc.
We finished our food and got back on the street. It seems that we had arrived late. You could smell the tear gas in the air. Still, late or not, we were there; was our mere presence enough?
At a crossroad we saw a huge number of secret police and the Islamic Republic’s militias arresting someone. What did I see? A broken knee under twelve angry men; a woman on a motorcycle saying, “Let that poor man go. You should be ashamed.” One of the militia mocking her, “If it’s shameful, why are you looking?” and another of the militia attacking her, shouting, “Get the fuck out of here.” We didn’t stop to see the ending. Were we cowards? We were getting through a tunnel of honor. I told Fahime to not walk so fast, many times, and she told me, “This is my normal speed, old man.” I told her, “They’re like dogs who smell your fear.” Both of us were scared.
We arrived at Sarsabz metro station, and when we decided to go back we heard one of the militia say, “Remember their faces. If they go back, we will whack them.” We changed our path so we didn’t face them again, but I really couldn’t recognize who was the enemy and who was my friend. Also, there were vans full of arrested people.
A man was getting into a fight with the militia. “Why are you kicking me? What did I do to you? You useless piece of shit.” I had to admire his courage.
Another man started singing behind me: “You will remain in my soul and spirit, oh my soil.” His warm voice melted me. I turned around to look. He was a bald, middle-aged man with a beard, like an artist. He was short and shabby. I worry that my description will make a clear picture of him and then the militia will arrest him. Behind him I saw a crowd. Wow. This is how a crowd begins. That was enough for me, so we went back home.
“Are you okay, honey?” I asked.
“I’m more than okay,” Fahimeh said. “I feel alive. How about you?”
“I think I’m getting a heart attack.”
The next night we were sent into darkness. I wanted to go to the streets again but then the protest itself came to my house, like a flood. This city’s people are very conservative. One of my friends told me that they burned the Narmak mosque the night after I was there, and they wanted to seize the Narmak Sheriff on Friday night.
Maybe you don’t know, but the Islamic Republic uses everything against its people; mosques or ambulances or even firetrucks could be a repression tool. And here people don’t even know how to deal with the tear gas. After I started chanting, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we’re in this together,” others started chanting with me. But I was scared. I didn’t continue. I remembered the video of Ghazaleh Chelavi’s killing, which she filmed herself. First she chanted, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we’re in this together,” and then the second time she starts the chant… bang. A single gunshot, and she falls to the ground.
I’m a coward. I’d prefer to be a dead hero, not this coward who writes things which there is no way for anyone to read. I ran a lot in front of my home and I came back home safe at the end of that night. The night that they killed numerous people, so many of us didn’t come back home.
5. The dungeon of petrol blue curse and white martial law
It is not going to be a creative new thing; it is a boring, recurring story, the story of cowards and brave souls, the story of suffering and tyranny, the story of the modern dungeon. Everybody watches us dying. Something blocks my mind. It doesn’t let me think or write or say. Words can’t find their place in sentences. It is a huge mess. The thing that the Islamic Republic does with shutting down the internet is like a near death experience.
I have tried it many times now but I can’t get through it. I’m still here in darkness and I cannot do anything. I’m in a dark room. I just need to find someone to talk to or I just need to find the exit door. I start to talk to myself to keep my mind alive. I put my right hand on the wall and I start to walk. I grope slowly, but what if there is no way out, and I just go around in circles?
My right hand is on the wall. It’s a cold humid cement wall, like when they water fresh cement to make it stronger, but they watered it with our blood.
We all knew that this was going to happen. Didn’t we?
Let’s see how governing becomes a crime against humanity. We are in a dungeon that’s as wide as a country. If you look at Iran’s surface from the sky it has deep holes, and in the bottom of every hole one of us is dying alone. We are drowning in the oil and the gas is burning our lungs. I don’t know if what I write will ever be read. I don’t know if I’m going to come out of this dungeon alive or not. But I want you to know that I think our flag must be painted with the blue of petrol.
My pain is the only thing that shows me I’m still alive. I’m dissolving in pain. I hope when I come out of this dungeon… no, there is no hope. I hope that I don’t wake up tomorrow. This stress is drowning me. Sunlight hurts my eyes. Everybody is dead and I am the only one who was rescued, and for that I feel ashamed.
The regime celebrates its victory over our bodies, a complete inhumanity. They do not even look like the ghosts of humanity. Fuck this life, fuck this suffering, fuck this war. I wish I had died. I know dead people don’t suffer anymore. Every time that they send us through this dungeon it feels like none of us are human anymore. We are a collective of fear. Every day of our life is suffering and carnage and rage and violence. It should be our chance to finish the oldest unfinished job, the one that arrives at a dead end every time.
We are in a silent martial law. Everyone has to go to work and nobody knows what’s going to happen next.
Are we going to get the freedom and welfare that we deserve? Nobody knows. But I know one thing for sure: When I have earned my freedom I will go and piss on every organization that pretends that it cares about human rights.
6. Gozar-e Siavash az atash
In ancient Iranian culture fire is one of the most respected divine manifestations. Āzar, fire, is the beloved son of the Almighty Ahura Mazda, the wise god. Zoroastrians believe that fire doesn’t burn the truth, it doesn’t burn good humans, it’s just purifying.
There is the myth of Siavash. He is a vegetal sacrificial deity who has to be a martyr anyway. When he sees that nobody can bear the heaviness of truth of his virtuousness, he decides to prove it by the test of fire.
They gather logs and firewood for seven days, then they set it on fire from far away using an arrow. When they light the big fire at night it brightens the whole place, like day. Siavash and his poor innocent horse went through the fire among all the cries. After a while he came out, safe and easy.
Come back to reality. We’re not essences: we are mortals who still can’t find the narrow way to freedom. Here is Rasht, a beautiful rainy city with the kindest people in the world. In the Zan, Zendegi, Azadi days, repression forces killed Mehran Sammak with a bullet just because he celebrated (as an act of protest) when the USA football team beat the Islamic Republic team in a stupid game. They even shoot you when you honk to protest.
I think the first rule we should pass after all this is the abolition of the death penalty. Because the rage and desire of revenge that the Islamic Republic makes inside of us is so great. Just look at Rasht: on January 9, protesters were surrounded by the regime’s forces. They were still chanting, trying to fight for freedom with their bare hands. The regime’s forces set fire in the bazaar so that protesters had nowhere to run. They were caught in the fire. Probably they heard Āzar’s voice, which says to them, “I never burn the truth.” People went through fire and it didn’t burn them. They chose to surrender by showing their hands and coming out of fire. Islamic Republic troops then shot at them.
I hope Khamenei sees the girl who lit her cigarette with his burning photo. Surely we will burn all of this misery, ashes to ashes. Fire will purify everything.
7. Sepehr, where are you, Daddy
It is just twelve minutes of Lalehzar-e Kahrizak. Do you understand what it means? Laleh means tulip and Lalehzar means tulip field. I think everybody must hear how this picture of Iran chants the Tasnif-e az khoon-e javanan-e vatan lale damideh. In that twelve minutes you see each and every body sing this song, silently, while the man repeatedly says, “Sepehr, where are you, Daddy?” and curses Khamenei and his men, desperately.
Do I feel nothing? Have I grown used to such things? You know how many people can’t even find their loved one’s body? Is it even possible to think about forgetting and forgiveness? There were dozens of bodies in that clip. Who can bear all this?
They kill us to scare us. You can see bodies with head bandages; it means that they were killed in hospitals. You can see bodies with hands in zip ties; it means that they were killed when they were in custody. You can see a container full of bodies, and four other containers behind it. There are dead, smashed bodies under black covers everywhere on the ground; sometimes one of them moves suddenly and you understand that someone is there, alive, injured among those corpses, probably for days. The scale of this horrific genocide is unknown, maybe forever. They bring us fear and disappointment and war and war and war.
Words can’t do anything here. All good things are dead. So many of us don’t care about death anymore. This is a normal routine for us. We do not look like humans anymore.
At the end of that twelve minutes of wailing and lamentation and smashed and butchered bodies, you can see a woman’s body, her eyes are open, and it seems that she’s looking at me…