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I’m an Iranian born in 1999. When I was barely a few months old, there was a demonstration in defense of freedom of speech and press freedom, known as the Iranian student protests of July 1999. Riot police attacked a university dormitory in Tehran, killing a student. Over the next six days, at least three more were killed, 200 were injured and more than 1,000 were detained. 70 more disappeared, five of whom are still missing after 26 years. The world said they stand with us, but we were alone the whole time.

When I was in elementary school in 2009, Iran held a presidential election. During peaceful protests regarding potential election fraud, Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian student, was fatally shot by paramilitary forces. In the following weeks, at least 36 others were killed in the streets, and thousands were arrested. Many were imprisoned, and men and women were raped and tortured to death by government forces. The world said they stand with us, but we were alone the whole time.

When I was completing my bachelor’s degree in Iran, another wave of protests broke out, after fuel prices rose by 50 to 200%. With the economy collapsing, people were forced to ask for their most basic rights. The government responded by shutting down the internet for six days, calling the protests a matter of national security and calling demonstrators rioters and tools of the enemy.

This period became known as Bloody November, when paramilitary forces began shooting people from rooftops, cars and helicopters. The exact number of lives lost during the internet blackout remains unknown; some reports leaked numbers as high as 1,500. Regardless, countless innocent lives were lost to bullets and war machines. The world said they stand with us, but we were alone the whole time.

Amid this unrest, there was a night the sky lit up, not with fireworks, but with missiles. Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, killing all 176 innocent souls on board, many of them some of the brightest students of our generation. For three days, the government lied, calling it a technical failure, until the truth could no longer be buried under the wreckage. We poured into the streets, not just in grief but in rage, asking for the most basic human right: life. In response, authorities fired tear gas, wielded shock batons and harassed relatives of the victims. The world said they stand with us, but we were alone the whole time.

A few months after I started my graduate studies here at Syracuse University, a girl named Mahsa Amini visited Tehran and never returned home. She was killed in the custody of the morality police for showing a few strands of hair. Her death ignited a fire that burned through every city. Women danced in front of bonfires, burning their headscarves, while men stood shoulder to shoulder with them, chanting the words we had always longed for, “woman, life, freedom.”

The government shut down the internet once again, unleashing a level of brutality we hadn’t seen before. They aimed their shotguns at the faces of young girls, blinding them so they could no longer see the future they were fighting for. They executed young men just for blocking streets, hanging them from cranes at dawn to instill fear. Hundreds died, thousands were severely injured and hundreds of thousands were detained and tortured. The world said they stand with us, cutting locks of hair in solidarity, but we were alone the whole time.

Now, as I write this, the streets are burning again. The economy has collapsed so completely that bread and rice have become a luxury for many. The currency has lost all meaning. What began as a cry of hopelessness has turned into a deafening roar for a new revolution, with the same demand as when I was born: freedom.

The government has blacked out the internet again, plunging us into a complete digital darkness for over 14 days, so the paramilitary forces could slaughter us in silence. Multiple respected news outlets claim there have been at least 36,000 killed, 100,000 injured and even more arrested in just a few days. Hospitals and morgues are piling up with bodies, machine guns are mounted on the streets, there are paramilitary attacks on doctors trying to help, rape and torture of arrested women and a regime that is more dangerous than ever.

We’re helpless, we’re wounded and we’re fighting against bullets with empty hands.

I’m an Iranian, and all I ask from everyone is don’t simply claim you “stand with us,” but show it through action. When a country is occupied from within, solidarity without action is merely an obituary written in advance. We fear that history is repeating itself, not just our history, but that of Budapest in 1956. The West watched with sympathy as Soviet Union tanks rolled over Hungarian freedom fighters, keeping its hands clean while a nation drowned in blood.

In a 2022 interview, former President Obama said that, in retrospect, he wished he had acted differently during the Green Movement when there were “glimmers of hope” for freedom.

What I’ve written here is merely a fraction of what this regime has done to its own people. The list is endless, from the 1988 mass executions of Iranian political prisoners to the chain murders of Iran, continuing to the present day.

I’ve seen with my own eyes people hanged from cranes, whipped and tortured, mothers crying over their children’s graves and children crying over their mothers.’ I’ve seen brains spilled onto the streets, gutters filled with blood and countless horrors that don’t appear in even the darkest history books or films. This has gone on for over 47 years, all in the name of freedom, while the world has watched as we were suffocated.

The people of Iran have never asked for anything but freedom.

If you believe freedom is one of humanity’s most noble causes, act and show that you stand with the people of Iran and their human rights. The Iranian government controls access to the internet and other forms of communication while using state media to paint a completely different picture. The least you could do is to rely on reputable news outlets, spread awareness and refuse to remain silent on this massacre.

True activism about Iran begins with education, as understanding the structural roots of oppression is the only way to counter state-sponsored disinformation. By learning the why behind the struggle and seeing facts, you ensure that your advocacy is a powerful, informed defense of human rights rather than a fleeting reaction to a headline.

What’s been happening in Iran goes far beyond tragedy. It is, above all, a human rights crisis. As students, be the voice of the voiceless, whether through social media posts or speaking with your representatives in Congress. Don’t let these events be swept under the rug.

Disclaimer: AJ Kian is a guest columnist for The Daily Orange. He is an SU graduate student writing under a pseudonym due to safety and privacy concerns.

Published on February 9, 2026 at 10:56 pm