Cork-based Iranians fearful as they watch happenings in Iran

Iranian nationals based in Cork have spoken of their anxiety about what is going to happen next as they watch on from afar the current events taking place across their homeland.

Iran has been experiencing its most significant and violent upheaval since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

What was initially triggered by a collapsing economy and currency, the unrest in Iran has evolved into a nationwide movement of protests demanding regime change.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented Iranian security forces using lethal force, including live ammunition, against protesters.

Mastoureh Fathi, an Iranian lecturer working at University College Cork (UCC), told The Echo: “It is a very dire situation now from many angles. It is also a very complex issue, a complex matter politically, for human rights and safety of individuals.

“They shut down the internet. In the absence of any communication from inside Iran, they started killing people. But also afterwards by going into hospitals and killing the injured on hospital beds.

“By shooting at people who were injured and who had just operations, they have arrested and taken away doctors who treated these patients.

“They have actually taken injured bodies from hospitals. So these are quite brutal examples of what is actually happening.”

Difficulty contacting family

Ms Fathi spoke about the difficulty she has experienced when trying to contact family and friends in Iran.

“I just had one phone call from my brother for about one minute, after six days that I hadn’t heard from him. They said that they are OK,” she said.

“My uncle has a group of friends, there were about 14 of them. Half of them are missing. There is actually no news of them.

“So we don’t know if they’re dead, if they have been arrested, we are not sure.

“We’re not talking about numbers. We are talking about human beings who have been treated like this.

“For no reason, for just protesting and saying that we don’t want this regime, because we have tried any other way to protest in the last 47 years.

“We have even voted for an alternative. We have participated in peaceful protests. We have even been silent in protest, not saying anything. None of these worked, none of these.

“People are literally up to the point that they are breaking down. They are morally breaking down. They are psychologically breaking down.”

Reports on the death toll vary due to the ongoing internet blackout in Iran, with some suggesting the number of dead could be 12,000 or more.

Blackout

Shadi Mahjoum, a 28-year-old medicine student at UCC, has been robbed of any contact with her family due to the internet blackout.

“They have cut us off from our families because they don’t want any news of the killings to get out,” she said.

“They don’t want the world to see what’s really happening. We have to show the world that this is a massacre and that action needs to be taken.

“People ask me if my family is OK. I tell them that my family is made of 90m people and ‘no, they are not OK’.

“Sure, I care about my loved ones, but when I see these pictures of young people of 19 or 20 getting killed on the streets, it breaks my heart because these are my brothers and sisters.”

Hadi is also an Iran native who lives in Cork. As he still has family and friends living in Iran, he requested The Echo not publish his full name.

He said: “If I put myself in your shoes and hearing all these dark stories, I’m pretty sure you think this is too dark to be true.

“But unfortunately this is all true.”