One week after nationwide protests began in Iran, massive crowds took to the streets on January 8 and 9. What had started as demonstrations focused on economic hardship and labor demands soon changed direction, evolving into openly anti-government protests.

On January 10, the Iranian government completely cut off the country’s communications from the outside world, imposing a total internet shutdown. The fears many had anticipated quickly became reality, yet for those outside Iran there was only silence, leaving families and friends to rely on speculation and imagination as they worried about their loved ones.

Since January 19, fragments of survivors’ testimonies have slowly begun to surface, made possible by the restoration of minimal internet access, limited to only a few percent of normal connectivity and available for short periods each day. These stories show that even the darkest fears held by those anxiously waiting abroad fall short of the grim reality of what unfolded during those bleak days. Two such stories are presented here for the record:

A journalist’s post on X:
“For the past couple of days, our VPNs have been working sporadically, maybe half an hour to an hour a day, allowing us to connect to the internet. We’re letting people know that we’re alive. The city smells of death. In all my life, I have never seen snow fall in Tehran without a single person even managing a smile.

The newspaper Hammihan (paper close to one of the regime’s faction-reformist)  was shut down after three and a half years of publication. Over the past days, we tried to write about the dead and the wounded, about #Malekshahi, about Behesht-e Zahra, Kahrizak, and the eyes waiting for the bodies of loved ones; about hospitals, nurses, and doctors who witnessed the catastrophe, who cried and did everything they could. Hard days have passed, and everyone is in shock; a country is in mourning, a country is choking back tears, a country is heavy with grief.”

A phone call:
“Hello [name], how are you all? Our internet is connected in a very strange and weak way.
If you have access to any platform that can carry our voice out of Iran, please say that here the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun (regime’s Afghan proxy arm groups used in Syria) are wreaking havoc, raiding homes, attacking people. In addition to the killings, they are looting property. They spare neither the old nor the young.
The death toll is more than 50,000. In the morgues, the living, the wounded, and the dead are piled together so that even those still alive die. The injured are taken from hospitals and homes and killed by injections. Plainclothes agents have been stationed in every alley, and in the streets there are constant military parades and maneuvers, chanting ‘Heydar, Heydar (Calling Khamenei’s name’) and pro-government slogans.
Because I have a previous record, I’m afraid to send the message online myself. If it’s possible for you, please carry our voice. The situation is absolutely horrific.”