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After Tehran's deadliest crackdown on dissidents in decades and with broad domestic security mobilization and sweeping internet blackout still in place, Tehran now tries to project an image of calm.
That effort is being carried out through the handful of government-owned media outlets still permitted to operate, and increasingly through individuals granted internet access via so-called “white SIM cards,” who portray a peaceful, orderly Iran.
As of midday January 16, state television’s rolling news channel, IRINN, had aired more than two dozen times an old video showing families visiting a ski resort in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province near Isfahan. “People are enjoying the beautiful snowfall,” the narrator says.
Nowhere on the channel is the still-simmering nationwide discontent mentioned.
‘No tension, no police’
Other bulletins highlight news of a a “major oil contract”—not with a foreign partner, but with a group of well-connected domestic contractors authorized to sell Iranian oil on the black market using a “ghost fleet” geared toward evading US sanctions.
“The sooner this contract bears fruit, the sooner it will be a win-win agreement,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said of the deal in a clip posted on Telegram by the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars News outlet.
On social media, one widely shared clip shows a street on the western edge of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Cars move quickly along empty roads, with no pedestrians and no open shops.
“There is no tension in the streets even without security forces present,” the voice in the video says.
The account does not explain why calm streets should appear unusual, though residents note that armored vehicles and machine-gun-mounted vans patrol other neighborhoods openly, especially after dark.
The clip raises another question: how the account’s administrator was able to access the internet while driving in a city that has been largely cut off from the outside world for more than 200 hours by January 16.
‘Cut Trump’s finger’
In another IRINN report, security chief Ali Larijani said he had spoken with his Swiss counterpart “about bilateral ties.”
Around the same time, international media reported that Switzerland—along with several other European countries—had summoned Iran’s ambassador to protest the violent treatment of demonstrators.
State television and state-aligned social media accounts have ignored the suspension of operations by several embassies in Tehran, including that of the United Kingdom, and more recently those of Portugal and New Zealand.
Notably, senior officials have largely disappeared from public view. Airtime has instead been given to former figures such as Mohsen Rezai, the Revolutionary Guards' first commander, who threatened to “cut off Trump’s finger if it is on the trigger” during a televised appearance.
State TV reported that President Pezeshkian thanked Russia for supporting Tehran at the United Nations during a phone call, but otherwise officials remain conspicuously absent.
It may be some time before they reappear. It may take even longer for the public to forget what they did—and failed to say—during the crackdown.
Abolfazl Heydari Mouselou, a 16-year-old protester, was killed during demonstrations on January 8 in the city of Qir in Iran’s Fars province after being shot by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces, a source close to the family told Iran International.
The source said authorities handed over his body under threats, on the condition that the family says he had not been killed in the protests and that the burial take place without crowds.
The family had planned to hold the funeral on Friday, January 9, but the source said authorities refused to prevent crowds from gathering and protests from erupting.
Abolfazl was buried early Saturday morning at Qir cemetery, with only his father and four security agents present, the source said.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday rejected claims by the US State Department's Persian-language account that Tehran was preparing options to target American interests in the region.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei described the assertions as part of Washington’s efforts to stoke tensions.
He said the comments were in line with what he called the United States’ ongoing policy of “instability-making” in the region.
Baqaei stressed the determination of Iran’s armed forces to preserve and enhance the country’s military and defensive capabilities in order to defend Iran’s sovereignty.
He added that it was “self-evident” the Islamic Republic of Iran would respond “firmly and decisively” to any act of aggression.
Reiterating Tehran’s position, the spokesperson said Iran’s defense posture is purely aimed at safeguarding the country, but warned that any hostile move would be met with a powerful response.
The Persian-language account of the US Department of State on X said it had received reports suggesting the Islamic Republic is preparing options to target US bases, adding that Washington is closely monitoring developments and remains ready.
The post quoted Donald Trump as saying “all options remain on the table” and warning that any attack on US assets would be met with “very, very powerful force,” concluding: “Don’t play with President Trump.”
Iranians in exile say few families have been spared by the brutal crackdown back home, describing to Iran International an unprecedented wave of killings as security forces unleash violence under a nationwide communications blackout.
For Alex, an Iranian living in Texas, the violence is no longer something he is witnessing from afar.
His cousin Mehdi was killed on Friday, January 9, in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah after joining nationwide protests following exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s call for Iranians to rise up.
Iran International is withholding Alex’s last name to protect family members inside Iran.
“The Basij shot him in the head and the stomach," Alex said, recounting what his aunt told him. "They (Basij) hunted him like a dog."
Authorities later cut internet access across much of the country, severing communication and leaving families unable to confirm who was alive or dead.
Alex only learned what had happened days later, on Wednesday afternoon, when landlines briefly reopened during the blackout. The connection was poor and repeatedly cut out, but he could hear his aunt howling in tears and screaming.
"I only got like three minutes out of the call but what I got out of it was my aunt screaming and she said he's been killed."
Mehdi was 32 years old. Alex said his aunt later identified the body at a forensic center after days of searching. He says his aunt recognized her son by his hair.
"His face was completely unrecognizable," said Alex.
He said authorities are now demanding payment from the family to release Mehdi’s body.
From Texas, Alex said he feels hollow and barely able to function, but believes speaking publicly is the only way to honor his cousin and push back against the silence imposed by the blackout.
"He wanted a free Iran and King Reza Pahlavi."
'Fear and helplessness'
In Canada, Iranian-Canadian Ghazal Shokri described a similar sense of fear and helplessness as she waits for fragile contact with her family inside Iran. She said she has heard her mother’s voice only for seconds and her sister’s for minutes since the violence escalated.
Shokri said the scale of the killings is unlike anything Iranians have experienced before, warning that nearly every family now knows someone who has been killed.
She said she is increasingly worried not only about the physical destruction of the country but about the long-term psychological toll on Iranian society, including widespread trauma, depression and lasting social damage.
“There is every family now in Iran knows a few people got killed," Ghazal said.
"Honestly, it's not easy to talk about it. I mean, as a human being, we haven't been designed for this," she said.
Another Iranian in exile, Sobhan Nofar, said the nationwide communications blackout has intensified fear among Iranians living abroad.
“That silence is terrifying,” he said.
He said the loss of contact with people inside Iran has left many Iranians outside the country sleepless and consumed by anxiety for their families, with every fragment of information feeling like evidence of a growing bloodbath.
Hediyeh, a journalist based in Washington, DC, says she is worried not only about the health of her parents and her husband's family, but also about their financial situation, as they largely relied on allowances the couple sent through friends and relatives.
With the internet shut down, it is no longer possible to send money to the family, leaving Hediyeh concerned about how the elderly parents will make ends meet under Iran’s severe economic conditions.
Iran International has reported that at least 12,000 people were killed in just two days as security forces unleashed what analysts describe as the deadliest wave of state violence in the Islamic Republic’s history. Other estimates suggest the toll may be even higher as the blackout continues to limit verification.
Growing calls for US action
The testimonies come as calls by Iranians inside the country and across the diaspora for US military action have intensified, with demands for targeted strikes against the Islamic Republic’s security and repression apparatus.
For Iranians in exile like Alex, Shokri and Nofar, the debate is no longer abstract. It is shaped by the names and faces of people they knew and by the fear that more families will soon join them in mourning.
"Every piece of news, videos or photos coming from Iran feels like another sense of a blood bath," said Nofar "I'm really scared, deeply scared but I don't allow myself to completely fall apart because I truly believe Iranian people are bigger than this terrorist regime."
As Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world, they say speaking publicly is one of the few ways left to ensure the dead are not reduced to statistics.
US Vice President JD Vance, a longtime skeptic of foreign interventions, supported a US attack on Iran, The Washington Post reported, citing a US official and a person close to the White House.
"Vance reasoned that Trump had drawn a red line by warning Iran not to kill protesters and had to enforce it," the report said citing the person close to the White House.
Trump later decided not to strike Iran after learning about the consequences and that the strike would not lead to regime change.
The vice-president ultimately agreed with Trump's decision to hold off, the report said citing a person familiar with the process.
The president will have another opportunity to sign off on strikes against Iran in the next two to three weeks, when US assets headed toward the region will be in place, helping allay Israel’s concerns about its own protection, The Post said citing officials.
