We interviewed Nasrin (fictitious name for security reasons) about the current situation in Iran. She lives in Iran, is 20 years old girl, student in physics, promoter of an international humanist non profit organisation that promotes a simultaneous personal and social transformation.
- What is the situation like in the country? What is it like where you live?
Of course, I can’t really answer this questions on behalf of all Iranian people; However, from what I’ve seen and heard _and you might also guess_, people are stressed constantly, to say the least. I have family members and friends in Tehran, and as you know, Tehran has had most attacks among all other cities and that has been frightening and stressful for them. You might think “but Israel announced and warned Tehran and also told them to evacuate the capital.” That’s right, but firstly, most people in Iran didn’t have access to the international network for about 5 days in Iran and they really didn’t have a way of getting aware of this warning. Secondly, Tehran has a population of 15 million people! That’s 1.5 times the population of Israel. How can 15 million people evacuate their city in 1 or 2 days? That’s impossible. Plus, how about people in the hospital, the ones needing special care, Orphans, Homeless people and many more groups that don’t even have another place to go. Therefore, what I understand of this is that Israel is just trying to sound peaceful and show that they care about the people of Iran, which doesn’t seem to be true!
About other big and smaller cities in Iran, as far as I know, residential areas weren’t attacked but the stress, the fear and the loud sounds of explosion have made a lot of people not be able to sleep for many nights.
2. what is the main feeling of the people?
I can say the main feeling of people is Fear and stress, mainly because of the war, but also what will happen after, with all these industrial, military and residential places destroyed and how the government of Iran will act afterwards. We are worried about Iran.
Some people are also disappointed because of the amount of money that has been spent on these rockets and nuclear technology, let alone the money lost in this direction because of the corruption, and all this money is fired to destroy or have been destroyed in a matter of few days. This was the money that should’ve been spent on people, on the education system, on the health system, on People of this nation, or at least some bomb shelters for them…
Iranians are tired, because of all the problems we had ranging from economic ones to the violations of the government against us and now that everything has gotten a lot worse… But still, we have hope, for the war to end, for a better future.
- how do people see the future?
As I wrote previously, people are worried about how the government will be after this war. That is because we have seen in the past how more violent this regime has become after similar situations, also, these days we see 12-minute courts happen for some people that are accused of working with Israel or similar things, without even having a lawyer to defend them and that are directly sentenced to death! We have also seen in the past days, after the entrance gate of the prison Evin in Tehran (which is a political prison) was destroyed in an attack, all the streets leading to this prison was blocked and people have heard sounds of shooting in there. This government is not with its people.
- are protest movements such as “women life freedom” doing anything?
Despite the effort of Israel and the US for stimulating the people of Iran to protest and change the regime in Iran, Iranian people didn’t do so. Maybe some people wanted to and didn’t do so because of the heavy security atmosphere prevails in the cities, especially in large cities. Checkpoints and the presence of special unit officers confirm this. This government is as afraid of its population as its enemy, if not more.
But some people didn’t even want to protest despite their hatred for this government. We want the regime to change but we don’t want a puppet government that Israel or The US control it to rule over us. We don’t want our homeland Iran to be torn into pieces because of the lack of power. We hate the regime of Ayatollahs but We don’t want something worse than this to happen to us and certainly enough, we don’t want it destroyed by people that claim it’s for our good.
- how do you see the situation of the government and the theocratic regime?
I’m not a politician so I cannot really have a professional say on this; But I am going to talk about my observations and my opinions on them.
One interesting observation is that before, in the speeches of the leader of Iran or other governmental people, we saw them talk about “Islamic Ummah” (the global community of Muslims, united by their faith). But after this war has started, they only talked about “the Dear people of Iran”. Other facts like disconnecting the access of 97% of Iranian people from the international internet for 5 days, Checkpoints and the presence of special unit officers in the cities and other facts show that this theocratic regime is afraid of its population now that it’s gotten weaker because of the war. What’s interesting and sad is that still, I didn’t hear the representative of Iran talk about the people of Iran in any of the emergency meeting of the un security council.
The government of Iran is weak now, but they will put their full force on repressing any movement from people and they will do so in the most aggressive way, like they’re doing with the political prisoners under the shadows of the war. And after this war they will do so even more aggressively.
- what can non-violent movements abroad do to help bring about change in your country?
I personally think that non-violent movements can keep doing their activities and connect to people on a global scale so that they can grow awareness and inspire more and more people around the world.
Humanity needs peace and that’s definitely not what politics is doing and we shouldn’t believe any politician claiming that the reason why they’re killing or bombing in a country is because of the peace of that country or the whole world. don’t listen to the lies of the media, think and criticize. Propaganda works when people stop thinking.
