As Iran descends into one of the darkest moments of its post-revolutionary history, firsthand reporting from inside the country has become increasingly rare. Internet blackouts, phone disruptions, and the constant fear of surveillance have severed ordinary communication. Yet fragments of reality continue to surface — passed through relatives abroad, whispered during brief phone calls, and routed through improvised networks of Starlink links, Telegram proxies, and diaspora intermediaries.
These testimonies, obtained by Alhurra under conditions of strict anonymity, paint a consistent and deeply alarming picture: a country gripped by fear, where violence appears increasingly indiscriminate.
“A,” a member of the Iranian diaspora in Europe, relays messages from relatives in Mazandaran, in northern Iran. In a city of roughly 100,000 people, she was told, security forces are everywhere. Residents cannot walk a single block without encountering armed personnel. Streets that once carried ordinary life now function as zones of intimidation, where even brief movement feels dangerous.
From Canada, Kiana describes accounts passed through her mother and grandmother in Shiraz. What emerges is not a targeted crackdown on protesters, but violence that feels arbitrary. One woman, relatives said, was shot while grocery shopping — not protesting, not resisting. “During the Mahsa Amini protests, there was at least some restraint,” Kiana explains. “Now, that restraint seems gone.”
Another account from Tehran is even more harrowing. A father and his son stepped outside to see what was happening in their street. The boy pointed to something burning nearby. Moments later, he was shot in the head. The defining feature of these stories, Kiana says, is not only brutality, but senselessness — violence untethered from any logic except fear.
That fear extends beyond Iran’s borders. Jamshid, speaking from Australia, describes days of silence after the latest communications blackout cut him off from relatives, including his grandmother and uncle. His father, who had recently left Iran, spent three sleepless nights waiting for news. Contact was eventually restored through a fragile chain of Starlink connections and relayed phone numbers. When Jamshid finally reached his uncle, the message was brief: he was “okay.” Nothing more.
Other fragments surfaced through unlikely channels. In a dormant Telegram group, a user inside Iran appeared briefly, connected through an unstable proxy. Asked whether protests were over, he replied that so many people had been killed in his area that residents were now too afraid to leave their homes. Another described conditions resembling martial law: armed men everywhere, communications cut daily, and a chilling observation — “If you look in their eyes, you see no humanity.”
The most haunting account came through Jamshid from a friend’s family. Her brother called from Iran, and the phone was handed to their mother. She repeated the same words again and again: “They’re killing everyone.” Her son begged her to stop speaking, warning that the call was likely being monitored.
Ringo Harrison
Ringo Harrison is a content coordinator based in Washington DC. He is a recent graduate from Lund University in Asian Studies. He previously worked at American Purpose.
