Iran has a population of 90 million, and in January 2026, a theocratic, misogynistic, and predatory dictatorship is attempting to stay in power by carrying out the most brutal massacre in its 47-year history.
All reports tell of widespread protests, spreading throughout the country, across social groups (including those traditionally favorable to the regime), generations, and ethnicities. Entire families, workers, and students took to the streets because, with inflation at 40%, they could no longer work, eat, or live. Their social media profiles were flooded with photos of the lavish lifestyle of the oligarchs who had enriched themselves thanks to the regime and at their expense. Among the sources of enrichment in recent years was a huge trade in arms and military technology with Russia.
Many of the people who filled the streets of Iranian cities, towns, and villages have been brutally murdered: the Hrana agency reports nearly 4,000 deaths and 25,000 arrests at the time of writing. Who knows how many more will be sentenced to death.
What we are witnessing today is only the latest in a series of waves of protest that have swept Iran over the last twenty years and more. We remember the Iranian women and men who took to the streets in 2003, 2009, 2011, 2017, 2019, and finally in 2022 with the Women, Life, Freedom movement. Almost always, the demonstrations have been violently repressed, with killings, public hangings, and indiscriminate arrests, but never with such ferocity.
When the regime realized it could no longer contain the uprising, it shut down the internet and telephone networks and, in the darkness and silence, unleashed its terror. With the intention of maintaining it for a long time: plans for permanent digital isolation have been leaked, whereby only a national intranet would be left on, under strict control and without communication with the outside world.
We do not know what will happen now. However, we do know that we cannot look away—even if it is easy to do so in this world in flames—and become complicit in the darkness that has fallen over Iran. Instead, we must remain vigilant, keep solidarity alive, and keep our anger burning. We must support the prospect of a regime-free, secular Iran, where wealth is redistributed and everyone is free to live, dress, and love as they wish.
Jin Jiyan Azadì!