Iran International
The killing of thousands of protesters in Iran last month was followed by a near-total internet and phone blackout, leaving millions of Iranians abroad trapped in prolonged fear, trauma, and emotional paralysis.
For nearly three weeks, millions inside Iran were cut off from the outside world as authorities imposed sweeping restrictions on internet access and international phone lines after the violent suppression of protests. For Iranians in the diaspora, the silence was devastating.
Many describe days and nights spent refreshing news feeds, replaying worst-case scenarios, and bracing for phone calls that never came. Even when limited connections were restored, the anxiety did not ease.
“Psychologically, not knowing what is happening—or whether family members are safe—keeps the body and mind in a prolonged state of stress,” Canadian-Iranian clinical counsellor Farnaz Farrokhi told Iran International.
A state of constant alarm
Farrokhi says many in the diaspora are experiencing “constant anxiety, compulsive news checking, feelings of helplessness and guilt, and emotional disconnection from loved ones.”
“What I’m seeing is the continuation of collective trauma, layered on top of long-standing emotional wounds from years of instability, loss, and fear,” she said, adding that many are also grappling with survivor’s guilt—being physically safe while loved ones are not.
For Narges, an IT specialist living in the Netherlands, the days of disconnection were unbearable.
“At work, my colleagues’ laughter and jokes were painful,” she said. “But I couldn’t—and didn’t have the right to—transfer my anxiety to them. I couldn’t interact the way I normally do.”
She took two days off, hoping rest would help. It did not.
“At home it was no better. Every time the phone rang, the doorbell sounded, or even a small object fell, I jumped. My heart would start racing.”
Trauma spilling into family life
For Taraneh, an Iranian living in Italy, the emotional toll extended to her six-year-old son.
“I try very hard not to let my son see the painful images—bodies piled together in black bags,” she said. “But sometimes I can’t hide my grief or my tears.”
Her son keeps asking why she is crying.
“I don’t have an answer that makes sense to him,” she said. “And not being able to explain my feelings makes me feel even worse.”
Even after limited international calls were allowed, communication remained fragile. Calls were brief, unstable, and often cut off without warning. Some families waited days for a single connection.
Fear of surveillance shaped many conversations. Families resorted to coded language, wary that saying too much could endanger loved ones.
“When my parents finally called, we could only cry. We didn’t know what to say to each other,” said Leila, a London-based Iranian expat. “We both knew about the massacre, but we couldn’t talk about it because there was every reason to believe our conversation wouldn’t stay private.”
“My mum said it had rained a lot there,” Leila recalled. “I knew she meant the bloodshed—not rain. It hadn’t rained at all.”
An open wound
For some, reconnection brought devastating news: learning days—or even weeks—later that relatives or friends had been killed, injured, or arrested.
“Today I saw the father of one of my child’s classmates at the school gate,” Germany-based mother Neda Soltani wrote on X. “He looked stunned. He burst into tears and said his cousin in Tehran had been killed—and he had only found out this morning.”
“Two Iranians stood there crying at the school gate,” she added. “Others just walked past.”
Farrokhi warns that without acknowledgement, safety, and the restoration of trust and communication, the psychological toll on the diaspora will continue to deepen.
“This is not just about grief,” she said. “It’s about living in a constant state of alarm—never knowing when the next rupture will come.”
In late September 2022, when a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini was killed for showing her hair, Iran erupted. Millions of brave Iranians, women and men, young and old, took to the streets.
What followed was not just a protest against compulsory hijab laws, but one of the clearest rejections of the Islamic Republic since 1979: Woman. Life. Freedom.
At the time, I was head of digital operations at the Israel ministry of foreign affairs, leading Israel’s public diplomacy online in six languages, including Persian.
From the start, we distinguished between the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people. That distinction guided everything we did. We launched one of the only official digital campaigns anywhere in direct solidarity with Mahsa Amini and the protesters, including a filter viewed more than a million times.
Our Israel in Persian accounts exploded. Posts expressing support reached millions. Every day, we received thousands of messages from inside Iran: “Thank you for seeing us,” they said, “be our voice.”
In January 2026, they did the same.
For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic has insisted that hatred of Israel is central to Iranian identity. But millions of Iranians have told us otherwise.
A GAMAAN survey published in 2025 found that roughly two thirds of Iranians said the government should stop its “destroy Israel” rhetoric, and a similar majority viewed the recent 12 day conflict as between the Iranian regime and Israel, not between Israel and ordinary Iranians.
Loyal supporters of Iran's theocratic rule, the same voices that celebrated October 7, want you to believe Iranians hate Israel and that the protests are foreign engineered fantasies.
They flood social media with trolls, lies, and fake AI videos. But the people have already spoken. Across ideology and geography, they are saying the same thing: Not death to Israel. Not death to America. Death to the Islamic Republic.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranian Jews live around the world today, many still speaking Persian, cooking Iranian food, and aching for the country they were forced to leave.
Israel is home to about 200,000 Iranian Jews. Long before modern politics, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jews from exile and allowed them to return to Jerusalem, an event recorded in both Jewish and Persian history.
That shared past still lives between our peoples. And it lives in everyday encounters.
Every Iranian I have ever met has responded to me as a Jewish Israeli with warmth, curiosity, and respect. Never hatred.
Israelis are taught that Iran wants them wiped off the map. Iranians are taught that Israel is satanic and responsible for their suffering. But we both know the truth. It is the Islamic Republic that threatens both of us.
The rulers in Tehran have destroyed Iran’s economy, murdered teenagers for defying religious rule, and crushed dissent. They send money to their armed allies in the region while ordinary Iranians struggle to afford food and medicine.
Inside Iran, protesters chant, “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran.”
For Israelis, the danger is existential. The same regime that brutalizes its citizens openly calls for Israel’s destruction and races toward nuclear capability.
Israelis and Iranians do not need permission to recognize each other. Beneath decades of forced slogans lies something older and stronger than propaganda.
When Iranians rose up, Israelis didn’t see enemies in the streets of Tehran. We saw courage. And just as Iranians amplified Israeli voices after October 7, we understand that now it is our turn to speak for them.
This is not a Zionist conspiracy. It is human beings standing up for human beings.
The Islamic Republic fears that if Israelis and Iranians ever meet as people rather than caricatures, its mythology would collapse. So we stand with our Iranian brothers and sisters as allies, determined to answer their call for help.
For Jews, “Next year in Jerusalem” is a prayer for freedom. Today, that prayer has an echo: Next year in Tehran.
The sources said Alijanvand was shot by security forces with two live rounds, one striking his lower back and another his abdomen. His family spent five days searching hospitals, police stations and prisons across Isfahan province before identifying his body in the cold storage at Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery on January 13, the sources said.
According to the sources, Alijanvand's body was transferred later that night, on January 13, to Shahin Shahr's morgue.
Authorities initially refused to hand over the body and sought to have Alijanvand declared a “martyr,” a condition the family rejected, which would have required them to accept the state’s official account of the death rather than acknowledge that he was killed by state security forces.
Alijanvand was eventually buried under heavy security at around 4 a.m. on January 15, in a tightly controlled ceremony at Behesht-e Zahra Chaharbisheh cemetery in his hometown of Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran, with only five family members present and several plainclothes agents in attendance, the sources said.
Alijanvand was married and worked as a forklift driver at a brick factory, according to the people familiar with the matter.
“Reza worked from morning until night. He was deeply patriotic and hopeful for Iran’s freedom,” the source said, adding that Alijanvand believed Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi would return to the country.
Last month, Iran International reported that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history.
