Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

This testimony has been prepared based on an interview conducted by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center on January 29, 2026.

My name is ‌Behnam Amjadi. I was born in Tehran and I am 38 years old. I work as a sales manager in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, primarily with large chain stores and retail outlets.

About a week before the call for protests, I traveled to Turkey to visit my fiancée, who lives there. I was only supposed to stay for four or five days, so I was still in Turkey during the Bazaar strikes. I returned to Iran shortly before the Prince's call. After returning to Tehran, I had a few days' worth of work to catch up on, and after that I planned to go to Isfahan.

Attending the gatherings on January 6 and 7

By Tuesday, people were already out in the streets protesting, but we couldn’t join them. One of our friends was supposed to arrange for us to go together, but everything was delayed. By the time we arrived in the area, most people had gone home and the crowd had noticeably thinned out.

On Wednesday, I headed toward Naziabad. It was really crowded, with lots of people outside. The atmosphere at the protests was amazing. I enjoyed seeing people from all walks of life together: elderly men and women, young people, and even a woman who had brought her baby in a stroller. It truly felt like people were united. I hadn’t seen that kind of solidarity very often before. However, since I arrived late, the crowd had already started to thin out a bit.

Most of the forces present were police. There were large numbers of anti-riot police. I barely saw any IRGC forces and even fewer Basij members. On that Wednesday night, I did not see any IRGC agents at all; it was mostly police officers. They were dressed in black and wearing helmets; some were on foot and others were on motorcycles.

I did not see any shooting, but I did see people being beaten. Whenever protesters realized that nothing was happening or that the forces were not moving toward them, they would step forward more confidently. Then the forces would charge again. In some places, motorcycle units would suddenly appear from behind, as if coordinating with each other. It felt as though the forces were deliberately pulling back to lure people forward. Suddenly, five or six motorcycles would rush in from the direction of the square, firing tear gas from behind and attacking the front lines of the crowd.

Many people were arrested that Wednesday. I personally did not see any IRGC forces that day, perhaps because I arrived fairly late.

The Prince Reza Pahlavi’s Call and the January 8 and 9 Protests

Thursday night, after Prince Reza Pahlavi’s call, everything exploded. The streets were incredibly crowded. I headed toward Aryashahr and Ferdows Boulevard. From Sattari to Sadeghiyeh Square via Ayatollah Kashani, the entire area was packed with people. Ferdows Boulevard, which runs parallel to Ayatollah Kashani Street, was just as crowded from Sattari to Sadeghiyeh Square. Both main roads leading into the square were completely full.

Around eight o’clock, we went to my cousin’s apartment on Ferdows Boulevard because we had planned to head out together from there. By half past eight, when we stepped outside, we could hardly believe the size of the crowd. Our group consisted of twenty to twenty-five people, and then we started calling our other friends in different neighborhoods. Everyone was saying the same thing: protests were happening everywhere. Friends from Shahran told us that the streets were packed from Upper Shahran all the way down to the first roundabout near Hemmat Highway, and that the atmosphere there was just as crowded.

On that Thursday night, huge amounts of tear gas were used to disperse people around Sadeghiyeh, Ayatollah Kashani, and Ferdows Boulevard. They were also throwing many sound grenades. I even found one of the shell casings myself. My cousin wanted to take it back to Turkey with him, but we got scared in the end and threw it away ourselves. We did not even take photos of it because we were worried they might search our phones at the airport and find the pictures.

Ferdows Boulevard is a busy east-west street with countless intersections and side alleys. Motorcycle units kept arriving in waves of about ten to twenty riders each. From several hundred meters away, sometimes even a kilometer down the street, they would fire two tear gas canisters toward the crowd, scatter people, then speed away and repeat the same thing from another route.

Most of the forces on Ferdows Boulevard were wearing IRGC uniforms. The black riot police uniforms were no longer the primary ones. Most of them were IRGC. Around five or six in the afternoon, I drove from Sattari to my cousin’s place to park the car, and it was clear then that they had not anticipated the Thursday protests becoming so crowded. To be honest, we were shocked too. Nobody expected so many people to come out.

The crowd was so huge that we never managed to reach Sadeghiyeh Square to see what was happening there. Friends of mine who were on the square's northern side, near Punak, told us the next day that security forces had opened fire there with both live ammunition and pellet guns. We were on the western side. The eastern side stretched toward Sattarkhan. In our area, they mostly used pellet guns and sound bombs filled with pellets. When they exploded, the pellets scattered randomly everywhere. The noise was unbelievably loud. At one point, I was standing next to a shop with its shutters down. When one of those bombs exploded, the metal shutter shook from the blast wave. The sound was similar to the grenades used during the Chaharshanbeh Suri feast, but three or four times louder, with pellets flying everywhere.

At that point, the phones were still working. After Thursday’s protest, we were all talking to each other again on Friday morning, but the phone lines had been cut until around one or one-thirty in the morning. Shortly after midnight, calls became possible again, but text messages were still blocked and the internet was shut down. On Friday, everyone was talking about how crowded it had been on Thursday and encouraging each other to go out again that night.

On Friday night around eight o'clock, we went back to the same area and alleyways because my cousin's house was there, and it had become our meeting point. There were maybe fifteen or sixteen of us, but with everyone’s friends joining in, our group probably numbered around twenty. Some of our friends were on the northern side of Sadeghiyeh Square, and others were around Sazman-e Ab, Marzdaran, or Punak. We were mainly on the western side, near Ferdows Boulevard.

We left the car in the building's parking lot and left all our phones and IDs in the car so we wouldn't have anything on us. None of us could take photos or videos anyway. Even before Instagram's ban, people had been saying they were confiscating phones, checking stories and messages, and that the authorities would open legal cases against protesters, so nobody carried their phone anymore. Beforehand, we would agree that after one or two hours, we would meet again at a specific spot. If we got split up, everyone would return to the apartment entrance.

Around five or six in the evening, while I was heading toward the apartment and we were planning to go out around eight, I saw a family walking on the sidewalk: three or four older women and two men, all dressed in black and wearing masks. IRGC motorcycle units had stopped them and were hitting them with batons while screaming, 'Go home! Don't stay here! Go home!” One of the men stepped forward, trying to defend his family. They were already terrorizing people one or two kilometers before Sadeghiyeh. This was happening around six in the evening, despite the official call being for eight o'clock. People had simply come outside to walk around. Everyone had been saying, 'Come out, take a walk, eat ice cream, just be present.' But even that became an excuse for them to threaten people with batons and drive them away.

Despite all that, the crowds really started building on Friday night, around nine or nine-thirty, and Friday was even more crowded than Thursday. People were more united, too.

Because of everything we had heard and seen the day before, we were much better prepared on Friday. We wore two pairs of trousers: a thick cotton pair and a woolly pair underneath. We also had T-shirts, heavy clothes, and jackets. Despite all this, the atmosphere at the protests themselves was completely peaceful. I genuinely did not see anyone trying to vandalize anything or destroy property. The only things some people did, which I wouldn't even call vandalism, were to pull trash bins forward to use as barriers or to light small fires to create smoke, which would make the tear gas less effective.

By Friday afternoon, around two or three o'clock, the security forces were fully prepared. Previously, in areas such as Sadeghiyeh Square, Kaj Square, and Punak, riot police would gather in certain spots with perhaps a hundred motorcycles parked nearby. But Friday was different. After seeing Thursday’s crowds, they had positioned IRGC groups at every intersection, starting almost a kilometer before Sadeghiyeh. Around the square itself, riot police, regular police, IRGC, and Basij were all present. Since the 2009 protest, I had never seen them deploy so heavily, with ten or twenty forces stationed at practically every street corner.

That same night, I noticed plainclothes agents mixed into the crowd, encouraging people to move toward the security forces. Even on Ferdows Boulevard itself, there were plainclothes agents among us, directing people.

The alleyways around Ferdows are endless. People kept trying to move from Ferdows toward Sadeghiyeh. There is also a Valiasr Street there. I remember yelling at people, 'Why are you all going up there?' I insisted that we should go through the alleys leading toward Ibn Sina Hospital, otherwise they would attack us from behind with tear gas. Many people agreed with me, but some did not. There was one young guy I watched closely because he barely moved and kept shouting, “No, come this way! Go up there!' I kept saying that it made no sense and that we were risking our lives and our families. Another group of three or four people was constantly directing people, shouting, 'Come over here! Come over here!'

I kept telling people, 'We did not come here to start a war. We came here to protest. So we should at least move smartly. If they’re going to attack us anyway, we should make it harder for them.' What I had warned about ended up happening.

I believed that if the crowd on Valiasr had continued toward Ibn Sina, the forces would not have been able to surround us from behind. Instead, they wanted the main street to be crowded while leaving the alleys open, allowing the motorcycle units to approach from behind and fire tear gas, pellets, and sound bombs. And that is exactly what happened.

The moment the motorcycles rushed in, I jumped up and ran with three or four others toward a back alley. Some of my friends ignored us. In that chaos, even if you were with ten or twenty people, you might see them for only thirty seconds or a minute before everyone disappeared into the crowd and no one could find anyone anymore.

I ran back toward another alley just as the motorcycles started firing tear gas and pellet-filled sound bombs from Ferdows Boulevard. They even threw some into our alley because so many people had run inside. All I did was pick up the tear gas canisters and throw them back toward the forces. Despite my lung problems, I would hold my breath, grab a canister, and throw it back to keep the gas from spreading deeper into the alley.

People had rushed into the alleyways, and, thankfully, many residents had left their doors open. Anyone could run inside any open doorway they found. It did not matter whose house it was. The crowds were so large that the police did not dare enter the alleys themselves. Instead, they stayed at the intersections, firing tear gas, sound bombs, and pellets in every direction to keep people scattered and prevent them from regrouping. Their goal was clearly to prevent people from gathering together. They were afraid to actually enter the alleys.

Even though there was a strong sense of solidarity, nobody fully trusted anyone. As I was throwing back a tear gas canister, a motorcyclist pulled up beside me, holding a Molotov cocktail, and said, 'Hop on, come with me. Let's go and throw this.' However, we had all been warned not to get on a stranger’s motorcycle, as they could hand you over to the security forces. I hesitated, unsure whether to trust him. Just then, they fired more tear gas, and he disappeared. I never saw him again.

The entire atmosphere felt surreal. Everyone was dressed in black and wearing masks, so no one could see anyone else’s face. Whenever the motorcycle units passed by, everyone panicked, worried they might suddenly start shooting. We had no way of knowing who among us might be Basij, intelligence agents, or IRGC, because they were dressed exactly like protesters. Everyone looked the same.

The same thing happened again near the Mokhaberat intersection. They fired tear gas and scattered the crowd once more. The government had been caught completely off guard on Thursday, and we had been shocked by the turnout as well. But Friday was different. There were even more people, yet the forces had prepared in advance specifically to stop crowds from gathering.

After the tear gas attack at the Mokhaberat intersection, people scattered in all directions. Some headed downhill, some back toward Sadeghiyeh, some ran into houses, and some moved toward Sattari. We started heading toward Ayatollah Kashani. Since none of us had phones, we had all agreed to check the time every hour or two and return to the apartment at a set hour to make sure everyone was alive and safe.

As I was walking with the crowd along Ayatollah Kashani Street, I saw the same suspicious guy again. He was wearing a hat and dressed exactly like the rest of us. He was also wearing a mask and shouting, “Come this way! It’s safe here!” There was a gas station across the boulevard. Some people wanted to continue straight toward Sadeghiyeh, while others followed the man toward the gas station.

I crossed halfway across the boulevard and looked behind the gas station. There was an emergency services yard there, and the second I looked over, I saw at least ten or fifteen motorcycles belonging to the anti-riot police waiting. I immediately started screaming, 'Don't go over there! Don't go over there! He’s undercover!' But by then, people had already crossed halfway. The motorcyclists rushed in and started beating everyone. All we could do was run. It was probably around nine-thirty or ten o'clock at night.

After that, we fled along Qobadi Street, Ayatollah Kashani Street, and Ferdows Street, heading back toward the apartment. When we arrived, we realized that one of our friends was missing. We waited a while, and he eventually returned. Then we realized another person still had not come back, my cousin’s husband. Our plan was that, no matter where we ended up, everyone would return to the apartment by 10pm or 10.30pm, because we had no phones. But he never came back.

So we split into groups to look for him.

We got into a car. My friend and his wife sat in the front, while another friend and I sat in the back. We drove toward the last place I had seen him. We drove up Qobadi from Ferdows Boulevard, but there was nobody there. In the distance, near Sadeghiyeh Square, we could see the green laser lights of the security forces. We assumed they had attacked there and driven everyone away. So we drove back down and took another alley toward the next intersection, where there were still people around.

I asked them to stop the car so I could go check if he was there. His thirteen- or fourteen-year-old daughter had not heard from him for over an hour, and she was crying nonstop.

A friend and I ran up the street, but there was no sign of him. Before we knew it, the streets had started to empty. It was close to eleven at night. The motorcycle units were still moving from intersection to intersection, firing tear gas and pellets in every direction. We assumed they would fire a couple of grenades and move on, as they had before, but this time the street was much emptier. As soon as they started approaching, people ran. But unlike before, they actually entered Mokhaberat Street itself.

We ran too. My friend jumped on a motorcycle. I was about to get on the motorcycle when I noticed a young girl and boy behind me pulling on my jacket. I pushed them down behind some bushes so they could hide, then turned back toward the car so the others could drive off. But by then the motorcycles had already reached us.

From previous nights, we knew that if you got into a car, they would shoot at it and you wouldn't be able to defend yourself. I thought that if I got inside the car, the motorcyclists might open fire on it. Even though I was in danger myself, I deliberately ran away to draw them off and allow the others to escape.

I ran towards Mokhaberat Street. There is an alley there called Panahandeh Alley. People had blocked it off with rubbish bins and a 'Do Not Enter' sign to prevent motorcycles from getting through easily. I made it past, but seven or eight people were already chasing me. Then another motorcycle came around the corner. I crossed one alley, but the rider hit me with the motorcycle, throwing me against a wall. Right after that, ten or fifteen of them attacked me.

Seven or eight of them were beating and kicking me at the same time. I was curled up on my right side and could only protect myself by keeping my arms, legs, and face up. Some were pulling at my trousers to see if I was carrying anything, while others were searching my pockets. I kept repeating, 'Man, I only came looking for my cousin's husband.' They shouted, “ID! Phone! What do you have on you?” I kept telling them I didn't have anything and that everything was back at the house. I offered to go get it for them, saying, “Our place is right here.” One of them asked, “What documents do you have? Any ID?” Then another said, 'He's got nothing on him. He’s a professional.” I kept saying, 'Professional what?' I came looking for my cousin’s husband. I’m just trying to go home. His daughter’s crying.”

While they were still beating me, one grabbed my hair, yanked my head back, and held a phone up in front of my face, saying, 'Stand up straight.' They took three or four pictures of me and then said, 'Get up and go. We’ll deal with you later.' They cursed at me and my family a few more times after that. I got up, but I was limping badly because my left leg had already been broken there, and they kept hitting it with batons over and over.

At that moment, someone farther down the alley shouted, “I opened the door, come inside!” referring to a house one or two doors ahead. My head was spinning. They had kicked me in the head, injured my arms and body, and broken my leg. I was hopping forward, holding onto the wall to keep upright. Then they suddenly called me back, yelling, 'Hey! Stop there!' and hurling more insults. I turned around.

They had found a Molotov cocktail somewhere, and one of them held it up and said, “This is yours. It fell out of your pocket.” I replied, 'Man, I don't have a Molotov cocktail.' He yelled back, 'This is yours, you bastard,' and they threw me back to the ground and started beating me again.

One of them was wearing plain clothes, not even a mask or an IRGC uniform. He sat on my legs and pulled out a small box cutter, one of those carpet cutters with the blade sticking out, wrapped in black tape around the handle. He started stabbing my legs rapidly and repeatedly, switching the cutter from one hand to the other while continuing to stab me. It was clear the tool was designed for slashing and cutting, not for instantly killing someone. In that moment, I thought this guy wasn't really IRGC or Basij; he was a thug. What kind of IRGC guy attacks someone with a knife like that?

Having grown up around the Grand Bazaar, I recognized that way of holding a knife. Even if he had an IRGC ID card, I would swear to God he was basically a hired street thug.

Then, within seconds, he dragged the cutter across my forehead, once across my cheek, and once over my nose. It all happened incredibly fast. My whole face filled with blood and started burning. I think I lost consciousness right then. My vision went black. I was lying on the ground, unable to speak or even beg for mercy.

Then he opened the Molotov cocktail, poured the liquid over my face, and shouted, “Give me a match! Give me a lighter!' I barely had enough strength left to say anything. He continued to scream insults and yell, 'I'm ISIS! I cut heads off. Go tell everyone. Come out into the streets and I’ll cut your heads off too!” Then he tried to pin my hand so he could drag the cutter across my wrist. Using whatever strength I had left, I grabbed his hand with both of mine so he could not cut me while the others continued to kick and beat me with batons.

After that, I blacked out. I have no idea how many minutes passed. They smashed the Molotov cocktail on the ground right in front of me, got back on their motorcycles, and left. I was lying unconscious in the alleyway when I finally opened my eyes and found myself in the stairwell of a residential building. A neighbor who had seen everything from the balcony and the person who had shouted, 'I buzzed the door open,' had come down, grabbed me, and dragged me inside.

When I opened my eyes, three or four women were standing over me, crying. There were also two men present. They were splashing water on my face, wiping the blood away with tissues, and trying to cover my wounds with bandages.

I looked at them and said, “Go to alley …, building number … . Our people are there.' A husband and wife who were leaving the parking lot went first to pass the message to the others. I stayed there for about ten or fifteen minutes. I could no longer sit upright; I had to lie down because my vision kept fading to black. I wanted to sleep, but they would not let me. They kept saying, 'You can't fall asleep. You have to stay awake.”

After waiting about five minutes, no motorcycles returned. I thought maybe they had gotten scared, or maybe I had given them the wrong address. Then they put me in their car and drove me to the exact address I had given them. When we arrived, my cousin and the others were waiting outside the building. I remember my cousin calling out, 'Behnam, how many fingers am I holding up?' I replied, 'Two.' Then, as I could no longer stand on my own, two people grabbed me from either side, lifted me up, carried me upstairs in the elevator, and into the apartment.

Going to the Hospital for Treatment

That night, we didn't go to the hospital right away; instead, we gave initial treatment at home. The same group that had been out with me that night had been driving around looking for me. Eventually, they came back and told everyone, 'Behnam is upstairs.' My cousin said that his cousin’s daughter was a nurse and had been on shift that night. They woke her up, and she came over immediately.

The first thing she did was clean my wounds with Betadine. I remember hearing her ask, even in the condition I was in, “Why did you put Betadine on this?” Then she cleaned the wounds again with saline solution. After that, she wrote a prescription and told the others to go buy some stitches. However, every pharmacy they went to either had no sutures or no wound-closure strips left. Ultimately, they cut up the adhesive strips that people usually use after nose surgery and used them to pull my wounds together. The cut on my cheek could not be properly treated because of my beard, so they covered it with sterile gauze and bandaged it.

Honestly, I didn't care about any of my other injuries at that point because the pain in my leg was unbearable. I felt like I was dying from it. They gave me an injection, though I still do not know what it was, and after that the pain eased enough for me to sleep for a little while.

They woke me up again a bit later and said that we had to leave because my cousin’s husband, the person we had originally gone looking for, still hadn't been found. By then, it was around two or three in the morning, and everyone thought he might have been arrested. They insisted that he was not the kind of person who would just disappear without contacting anyone. They were also worried that the security forces might raid the house, especially with me there in that state.

They moved me to a friend's house, where we spent the night. The next day, my sister picked me up, and we went to a hospital. It was a private hospital, not a public one. One of my friends knew the chief administrator in the hospital's director's office. By then, we were terrified and genuinely did not know where it was safe to go. When we arrived, we gave them fake names and national ID numbers, and I was admitted under those identities.

Almost everyone who had been injured during the Friday protests, including people hit by pellets or with eye injuries, was also there under fake names. Apparently, the hospital director had ordered the staff not to charge any of them. He came to see me in person and said, 'This could cause me problems, but once you leave here, if you see anyone in this condition, send them here.' He also warned me not to trust anyone inside the hospital. He said that even someone with bandaged eyes or injured hands could be a plain-clothes intelligence officer. He told me, 'Only trust the medical staff.'

They took me to the radiology department in a wheelchair. They scanned my hand, head, and leg. They had a special code, 'MC,' for people injured during the Thursday and Friday protests. Anyone registered under that code was taken in immediately, without waiting in line, and was not charged.

They scanned my hand and said there was bleeding and trauma, but nothing too serious. Then the orthopedic doctor examined my leg.

My left leg was completely broken in two places. It was not just cracked; it was actually broken in two places. I still have the X-rays. The doctor told me that my leg would have to stay in a cast for three weeks, after which they would take new X-rays. If the bones had shifted, I would need surgery to reconnect them with metal plates. If they stayed in place, I would need to stay in the cast for another two or three months until it healed. I just hoped it wouldn't come to surgery.

Thankfully, despite taking a lot of blows to the head and having it become extremely swollen, there was no internal bleeding. The bruising also faded relatively quickly. The doctors never charged me anything.

I personally did not witness live ammunition being fired in the area where we had been protesting. What I did see was pellet fire. However, friends who had been on the northern side of Sadeghiyeh Square toward Pounak later told me that they had seen security forces firing live rounds there.

Even inside the hospital, right outside the emergency entrance, a young man came up to me and quietly asked, 'Were you out there too?' I immediately replied in the negative and told him that I had been injured in a motorcycle accident, as the hospital director had warned us not to trust anyone. Then the man showed me his thumb. There was a pellet lodged between the bones in his thumb. He said he had been near Kaj Square, where someone on top of a mosque had been firing randomly into the crowd. He described how the shooter would take two puffs of a cigarette, fire several shots, pause, take a couple more puffs, then fire another burst.

One of my friends had been hit with pellets. Another friend of mine in Shahran had been hit, too. Another had also been injured by pellets. In fact, even today, one of my friends came online to say that he had been shot with pellets as well. Several people who were with us that night had sustained similar injuries.

While I was in the hospital, I did not see anyone in worse condition than me, but I heard and witnessed some very distressing things. The administrator from the hospital director’s office told me that someone had been brought in the night before with a pellet wound to the heart and had died. Another patient was in intensive care, and my cousin, who was there with me, walked by that ward and saw the family sitting outside, crying.

There were injured people everywhere around us: a man with pellets stuck in his hand, a woman with a pellet wound to her index finger, and, as we were leaving the hospital, a family carrying in a little girl who had been shot in the eye with pellets. One of her eyes was completely covered in bandages. The hospital was crowded.

People were saying that earlier that morning, several Basij or IRGC members had come to the hospital, shouting and swearing because it was treating injured protesters. We arrived around noon or two or three in the afternoon, but everyone was still talking about how chaotic it had been earlier.

Even the hospital staff kept telling others to bring the car directly to the emergency entrance so that I would not have to walk outside. They repeatedly warned everyone to be careful once we left. One of them even asked me, 'Do you have a hat?' I said no. He replied, 'Then at least put on a mask before you go outside.'

As we were leaving, even the hospital director himself told me to save his number and give it to anyone who needed help. He said, 'If you see anyone who is injured or scared, send them here.' He repeatedly emphasized that they would not charge anyone and told me not to send injured protesters anywhere else, as they were ready and waiting twenty-four hours a day. He even said that, even if he was not on duty, I could call him and he would arrange for staff to come in. Honestly, we received the most help during those days from those people.

One of Our Companions’ arrest

At around five in the morning on Saturday, we received a call informing us that my cousin’s husband, whom we had been searching for, had been arrested near Sadeghiyeh Square and taken to the Amniat-e Enqelab detention center.

He and a friend had set off on a motorcycle to see what was happening around the Ayatollah Kashani area, planning to get there via Ferdows Boulevard. Near Sadeghiyeh Square, the police stopped them and asked what they were doing there. They immediately began insulting and cursing their families and threatening them, saying: 'Didn't we text you and tell you not to come outside?' My cousin’s husband replied, “What do you mean? Why are you talking like that?” An argument then started. The situation quickly escalated. They grabbed him, beat him brutally, and threw him into a van.

His friend had a knife on his motorcycle. The officers took the knife and used it against my cousin’s husband by dragging it across his hand. They then built a case around it, writing in the report that he had attacked two law enforcement officers, was carrying a knife, and was performing dangerous maneuvers. They even claimed that he had been drunk and under the influence of alcohol. They beat him so badly inside the van that they forced him to sign papers. He later said that he had asked them, “What exactly am I signing?”, but they kept hitting and cursing him until he signed.

For the next two or three days, the others kept going back and forth to Amniat-e Enqelab, as I could not go myself because my leg was broken. Every few hours, they saw some detainees being released after signing pledges, but he never came out. His family stood outside for forty-eight hours straight, waiting for news.

Finally, after much begging and pleading, someone came out, asked which family he belonged to, and told them to come inside. One family member was allowed to speak with him alone for barely a minute. He explained that his case file stated that he had a knife, had assaulted officers, and was drunk. They asked him, “Did you sign it?” and he replied, “Yes. They were beating me, so I signed.'

As a result, he was detained and transferred to Great Tehran Penitentiary. His court hearing is approaching. He has a lawyer, but in practice, the lawyer has not been allowed to do much. They told his family the hearing would take place inside the prison. He will simply be taken to a room there, where the hearing will be held online. The judge will be able to see him, but he will not be able to see the judge.

Last Saturday, his sister managed to visit him. She brought him blankets and personal belongings, and they told her this was probably only the first hearing. The trial itself will be nothing like a normal court proceeding, where the defendant is taken to court and the lawyer sits beside them. The hearing is held inside the prison without the lawyer present, and communication with the judge is online, not face-to-face.

Different patterns of repression across areas and possible U.S. military intervention

One thing I want to emphasize is that we are not a warlike people. We did not grow up in a war zone. Most of us are ordinary people who go to work every day and try to live peacefully. Despite all the pressure and restrictions, we still try to carry on with our lives and adapt. I saw it for myself in the streets, with people constantly telling each other, 'Don't be scared, we're all together.'

But the IRGC and police motorcycle units had green laser lights. I think people have probably seen them in videos too. I honestly do not know whether they were laser sights attached to weapons or something else, but the moment people saw those green lights, many panicked and ran. People here are not used to military confrontation. They are not trained to stand their ground when a laser is pointed at them. So, even though people were angry and desperate enough to move forward, chanting things like 'Shoot us if you want,' the fear of being massacred hung over everyone like a shadow.

On Ayatollah Kashani Street itself, huge crowds would stop and block the roads. Drivers would shout at people to clear the street so that cars could pass, but young men and women in the crowd would respond, 'If we open the road, the forces will reach us and attack us. We have to block the street so they can’t get through.' Then, once again, the crowd would start chanting, repeating slogans such as 'We're all together,' 'Javid Shah,' and 'The clerics should be buried,' among many others.

But all it took was for one of those green lights to appear in the distance, signaling the approach of the forces, for people to suddenly start running in panic. There was a constant fear of violence and mass killing, and rumors spreading from different areas only made it worse. Having already heard that Thursday night had been brutal, people would think, 'They’re attacking again' at the slightest sign. One person would claim that gunfire was coming from above Kaj Square, while another would report hearing shots in a different neighborhood. Then, whenever people saw a strange light or movement, panic would spread through the crowd.

There was also constant talk of a possible U.S. military attack, and in my opinion, this undoubtedly influenced why so many people took to the streets. During the Mahsa Amini protests, people also came out in huge numbers, and there was a shared sense of anger; however, there were still many divisions. Back then, many people wouldn't even mention Prince Reza Pahlavi by name, and some openly opposed him. Now, even those who still disagree with him politically are at least mentioning him and saying they are listening to him. On top of that, Trump’s comments about helping the Iranian people really stayed in people’s minds.

Even today, I saw some of my friends' Instagram stories in which they wrote things like, 'Trump, if you're going to strike, then do it... even if I die too, do it... just take them down as well.' This shows how desperate some people have become. Many are waiting for something to happen externally.

Over the last couple of days, I managed to contact only one of my friends through a VPN, and it was very difficult. He told me they had taped their windows because everyone was expecting an attack. He said people were buying canned food and preparing mentally for what was to come. He even joked that, in this freezing weather, they would all freeze inside their homes if the windows shattered during strikes.

Regime change is at the core of everything for people now. That is really the main issue. People keep saying openly: 'We don't want this regime anymore.' They say the government has pushed them to the point where they have become not only alienated from the regime itself but also from religion and many of the beliefs they once held. People feel they have already done all they can themselves. They took to the streets. But the government has guns, bullets, and organized repression on its side.

Personally, I think many people no longer believe they can effect complete change on their own. When I was there, I could see this cycle of hope repeating itself constantly in people’s minds. Every Thursday, people would create new reasons to convince themselves that something was about to happen. They would say things like, 'Maybe nothing has happened yet because Israel struck on Thursday, so maybe the Americans will strike this Thursday.' Then Thursday would come and nothing would happen again. After that, people would start analyzing things differently, saying: 'Iran isn't Venezuela. Iran's intelligence system is much stronger.' They would say things like, 'They cut the internet, so they must be planning something.' Or, 'It's not like they can just remove Khamenei overnight.' What about the IRGC? What about the rest of the system? They must be preparing for a broader operation to disable everything within a few days.'

Honestly, I don't even know what picture people have in their minds anymore. I myself do not know what Trump or Netanyahu truly intend to do either. But like many other people, I am also waiting for something to happen, some kind of step that would make people pour back into the streets again.

Fleeing Iran

In the days leading up to my departure from Iran, my friends kept scaring me, saying things like, 'They took pictures of you. They filmed you. They're busy dealing with the obvious cases and prisoners first right now, but eventually they'll come for the rest too.' They said they were identifying people through photos and videos and that sooner or later they would come after me too. They told me I needed to leave and figure something out before it was too late.

By then, my cousin’s husband had already been transferred to Great Tehran Penitentiary, where he was still being held. We kept gathering so my cousin would not be alone throughout it all. We would call each other and say, 'Come over; let's stay together tonight.' But everyone around us was terrified. One person would say, 'I can't come; my mother won't let me leave the house because they arrested someone last night.' Another would say, 'My mom bought me a ticket to send me to another city.' People kept saying protesters were being identified one by one. They said drones had filmed the crowds from above and that CCTV cameras were being used for identification. Every day, we heard more stories like, 'Last night, they raided so-and-so's house and took him away.'

Even my cousin’s husband, whenever he managed to speak to us on the phone from prison, would tell us things like, “At first there were ten of us in here, then there were thirty.” He said more detainees were being brought in every day. Despite the streets having become quieter by then, arrests were still continuing. Everyone around me kept repeating, 'Behnam, they took your photo. They filmed you. They’re going to come after you. You need to leave.'

After about a week, many of my wounds had started to heal. Before I flew to Turkey, my sister used make-up to make the cuts on my face look like old injuries rather than fresh wounds. We also decided to use the airport's VIP and special assistance services because they handle passport checks and luggage procedures themselves. We thought this would attract less attention.

Everything had been planned out in advance. My only real fear was that, because they had photographed me, I might have been placed under a travel ban or even arrested at the airport.

That is why I prepared everything carefully in advance. I made sure that, if they checked my phone at the airport, they wouldn't find anything suspicious. My real phone, which contained all my information and photos, was packed deep inside my suitcase and checked in with the luggage. I entered the airport carrying a completely clean phone with only a few ordinary photos on it, including some of my injured leg to explain the cast and wheelchair. They did inspect my phone at the airport, but because there was nothing unusual on it, they let me pass. They didn't even bother checking my cousin's phone.

Before I left, the young girls in our family had covered the cast on my leg with slogans. They had painted it with gouache and turned it into a ridiculous, colorful cast covered in drawings and writing. Our flight was at 8.45am, and since we were also carrying boxing gloves, we had come up with a story in case anyone asked questions. I would say that I injured my leg during sports training.

Before the flight, I took two sedatives and another pill for my heart palpitations because I was so stressed. I had never worn a cast before. The doctor told me that my wrist had sustained trauma and internal bleeding and that I should keep it elevated and wrapped for a few weeks until it improved. If necessary, I would then need to do some physiotherapy. But I never did. Only my leg was in a cast, and I moved around in a wheelchair. I also kept the X-ray image of my leg on my phone, the one clearly showing the fracture and cracks, in case anyone questioned me.

Thankfully, we made it through without any problems. They even wheeled me all the way up to the airplane in the wheelchair.