Comment Editor Dahlia Farzi outlines the atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and how economic protests quickly became anti-government.
This article was written for Print Edition before the outbreak of the current conflict involving Iran and does not reflect subsequent developments.
As a British-Iranian, I witnessed Iran descend into another living graveyard in the final days of December, spilling into 2026.
On 28 December 2025, Iranians across the country demanded fundamental change. This was sparked by the Iranian rial falling to its lowest historical level against the US dollar, about 1.4 million rials per dollar, placing immense pressure on working-class families and merchants.
These protests originated in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, the centuries-old heart of commercial power in the capital. As inflation soared to 40%, it’s not a surprise that Iranian working-class merchants became tired of the government’s corruption and inability to provide a basic living standard.
However, to assume these protests were only fuelled by economic failures couldn’t be further from the truth. This narrow-minded claim is easily refuted by 2 major failures of the Islamic Government.
Firstly, according to the Global Slavery Index, an estimated 597,000 people are living in modern slavery in Iran. In July 2025, the government forced over 1.5 million Afghans to be deported, with one Afghan accusing Iranian officers of ”us[ing] hoses, water pipes and wooden boards to beat me. They treated us like animals.” Afghans are treated as a burden on the state, “scapegoats” for the government’s shortcomings in the war against Israel. Afghans deserve to be treated as dignified human beings, not cogs blamed on due to the government’s incompetence.
Secondly, since 1979, Sharia-based Iranian law stated that the legal age for marriage is 13 for girls and 15 for boys. In 2023, the Statistical Centre of Iran reported an annual average of 135,000 registered marriages involving brides under the age of 18, though figures are likely to be considerably higher. In 2023, Samira Sabzian, a victim of child marriage at the age of 15, became the 800th victim to be executed by the Islamic Republic. UNICEF shortlisted Iran in the Middle East and North Africa’s top five countries for child marriage in 2020.
Pre-Islamic Iran had empresses such as Pourandokht and Azarmidokht who were in charge of the empire and were given the title of Shahanshah (King of Kings). Instead, in 2022, during the Woman Life Freedom uprising, security forces unlawfully killed hundreds of protesters, including children, while hundreds of others were blinded due to the firing of metal pellets, with thousands more sustaining other serious injuries by unlawful use of force. All for the sake of “improper hijab.”
BBC Persian obtained a video from Tehran’s Grand Bazaar where a large crowd gathered, chanting “Death to the dictator” – Ayatollah Khamenei. Another clip circulated widely, showing an elderly woman with white hair and a bloodied mouth shouting slogans, “I am not afraid. I have been dead for 47 years,” referring to the Islamic Republic’s 47-year rule. A Shia cleric speaking in Farsi even urged Iranians to rise up and actively fight against the current regime, identifying Ayatollah Khomeini as the primary dictator responsible for initiating all of Iran’s issues. On Friday, 9 January 2026, the uprising continued with intensity in Sistan and Baluchestan province, while the people of Tehran and Karaj returned to the streets, defying the previous night’s lethal crackdown. Security forces in Zahedan opened fire on demonstrators using live ammunition, birdshot, and tear gas after crowds also chanted “Down with the dictator” and “Down with Khamenei.”
In response, the authorities imposed a complete nationwide internet blackout. On 5 January 2026, the Head of the Judiciary also ordered prosecutors to show “no leniency” to protesters and to expedite their trials; an excuse for murder. According to Iran’s International Editorial Board, over 36,500 Iranians have been killed in Iran’s deadliest massacre in only two days, the 8 and 9 January. They reviewed newly obtained classified documents and reports from medical staff and families grieving their loved ones.
For Iranians in the diaspora, my parents included, returning home is no longer a dream, but an impossibility.
How do you take pride in a country that has been stripped of its soul? How can you remain patriotic for a homeland rendered unrecognisable, held hostage by fear and repression?
I may not understand every linguistic joke. I may not fully grasp the spell Googoosh and Dariush once cast over a generation in love with raw emotions. I may struggle to recognise Tehran, Mashhad or Kermanshah in photographs that feel more foreign than familiar. However, Iran lives in me, in us. It flows through our veins; every word spoken is how we express tenderness, how we grieve, how we love, where English falls short.
Iran deserves to breathe, to be held gently, to be nurtured by the Iranian people. So whilst this government terrorises its people and our humanity inch by inch, from one Iranian to another, we will not be erased.
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