“We Are Not Afraid”

The short video went around the world. Majidreza Rahnavard (23) wears a blindfold; To his left and right are masked men, presumably members of the security forces. Before his execution, the young Iranian is asked what is in his will. Rahnavard replies that he doesn’t want people to mourn at his grave: “Don’t cry, don’t read the Qur’an, don’t pray. Be happy. Play happy music.”

Even in the last few minutes, Rahnavard did not give up his opposition to the regime. He was hanged early in the morning of December 12. He was the second victim to be executed by the government in connection with the demonstrations. But the protests do not stop.

Daria* (39) will also continue. A few days ago she marched through the center of Tehran with a few hundred people. “We didn’t have signs, we didn’t shout slogans,” Daria says in a video call. Then suddenly security forces appeared – and shot the demonstrators with rubber bullets and live ammunition. Daria escaped with bruises this time.

“Death to the Dictator!”

Many of her friends are already in prison. Yet every night Daria, along with hundreds of others, continues to shout from her balcony, “Death to the dictator!” The fact that she is threatened with a visit from the police does not deter her.

Isn’t she afraid of being arrested? Or even sentenced to death? “We’re not afraid,” says Daria. It sounds a bit like she has to encourage herself: “We don’t have a choice. If we don’t, it will get much worse!”

Daria knows what awaits her in prison. As early as 2009, she took to the streets to protest against the regime’s election rigging – and was arrested. The imprisonment was bad, she says, the beatings terrible. She doesn’t want to waste many words on it. Only says so much, “It’s better to be dead than arrested.”

Today’s protests are different from those of 2009, Daria says. “At the time, we wanted to reform the regime.” Today, the stakes are higher: “The regime must disappear!” The Iranians wanted to live like people in other countries: “We want our freedom. Our life.”

And yet: the executions frighten people. Daria admits that too. “My family is asking me to be careful and stay home.” She doesn’t stick to it.

change of mind

And sees a small glimmer of hope in the midst of violence, powerlessness, despair. In any case, the protests would have led to a reconsideration among the young men. “My boyfriend used to tell me to cover myself,” says Daria. “No one tells me that anymore.”

Daria takes a risk with her conversation with SonntagsBlick. Those who speak to foreign media risk being accused of treason. In addition, the regime has slowed down the internet in many places to make it impossible to share videos and photos. Calling or video calling is a difficult task these days.

Farid* (41) from Tehran therefore emailed Sunday Blick. “We are afraid because the government has acted so brutally against the demonstrators,” he writes. Many people no longer dared to take to the streets and limited their protest to social media. Farid’s only hope is the international community. Only through them can the brutal regime be stopped.

In fact, a new movement has emerged in recent days: female parliamentarians from Germany and Switzerland are sponsoring the death row demonstrators. They use social media to publicly campaign against the execution of ‘their’ activists; in Germany, some of them wrote letters of protest to the Iranian ambassador

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The pressure seemed to work. In any case, the Iranian government announced that it would abolish the death penalty in some cases. However, those affected remain in custody – and thus at the mercy of the regime and the torture of its uniformed officers.

Karim* is still at large. He regularly participates in the protests “to share my voice with the world”. He is happy, he writes in an email, that the world is listening to the Iranians. At the same time, he is amazed at the violence that the mullahs use against the population. One of his friends was arrested simply for supporting the protests with a post on Instagram.

“The Islamic Republic rules Iran like the Islamic State,” writes Karim. For him it is clear: “The demonstrations must continue until the Islamic Republic is destroyed.”

Because: “The regime will never meet the demands of the people.”

*All names have been changed to protect those affected