Voices from Iran: women defy fear in the face of brutal crackdown

The death toll from ongoing protests in Iran has surpassed 6,000, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

With a recent partial lifting of the internet and communication blackout, more videos of violence and death are leaking from the country, while more Iranians speak out about their experiences.

Over the past few weeks, an NPR producer reached out to several people in Iran to tell their story. People were terrified by the brutal government crackdown and wouldn’t allow us to record their voices.

Eventually, three women agreed because they want the world to know what is happening in Iran, on the condition that we protect their identities. Here are their stories:

On Jan. 8, an unemployed content creator left her home in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran, and went out onto the street.

She had heard Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former Shah of Iran, encourage people to take part in the protests that were sweeping across the country. She said there were many people chanting anti-regime slogans.

“We saw so many people. People were there with their young kids, old parents, a man in a wheelchair. It was amazing. The groups kept getting bigger and more confident. I will never forget the ecstatic feeling I had when we lit the rotten flag of the Islamic Republic on fire.”

But then things started to get bad. The content creator says her 18-year-old neighbor was shot dead by security forces. Then, government forces began to mow down more protesters over the next few days.

“They have always been murderous. But this time it was way more extensive and more horrifying since they had orders to shoot directly.”

During the same period, a housewife interviewed by NPR says her husband left their house in Karaj to join the protests. He never came back.

She went to the morgue in Tehran and was told she’d have to pay more than $6,000 to get her husband’s body back and sign a document saying he was a member of the regime’s paramilitary force, which he wasn’t.

“They said if you contact anyone or tell anyone, we will take your daughters.”

The housewife says she and her daughters are very scared and don’t dare leave their house. And yet, she says, people are still protesting.

“I hear my neighbors chant at night and sometimes very shortly on the street. But unfortunately, we don’t go out anymore.”

Even being in the house is not safe, says a third woman who used to work in publishing.

“They are killing people in their homes. The other day, in my alley, they pushed someone into the trunk of a car and kidnapped him. None of us dared to say anything because I’ve seen—they easily shoot. I don’t want them to kill me. I really don’t. I don’t want them to shoot me.”

The former publishing worker remembers seeing one young protester shot dead.

“I saw blood in the street. That was a human being who wanted to live, who wanted to shout his rights. His shout was all he had. Is this the answer to cries, bullets? Why doesn’t anyone do anything?”

She thinks the protests, which began over anger at Iran’s crumbling economy, haven’t changed a thing.

“Nothing. The protests only cause more deaths. They shoot us and kill all the youth. Prices have gone ever higher and we are poorer.”

But the content creator believes the protests must continue.

“I might go out and get killed. But whatever happens, there is one thing I know for sure, we have nowhere else to go. This is our home. And even if it can’t happen for me, I want the generations after me to experience freedom. Yes, we have lost many lives, but this is no reason to step back.”

She says, despite all the lives they’ve lost, they cannot afford to step back. Their fight must continue.