Free Iran

I don’t usually discuss politics on my personal platforms. Everyone is dealing with their own struggles and sees the world through their own lens. But when you see thousands of teenagers, students, workers, and even elderly people flood the streets, risking their lives to stand up to an oppressive government, it becomes impossible to stay silent.

As someone of Iranian descent, this movement hits close to home. Even though I was not born in Iran and have never lived there, it is still part of who I am. And watching what is happening there right now is heartbreaking, infuriating, and inspiring all at once.

What’s going on in Iran?

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranians have effectively been trapped inside their own country. Not behind physical walls, but behind laws, fear, censorship, and violence. For more than four decades, the population has lived under a regime that controls how people dress, what they can say, what they can believe, and how they are allowed to live.

For a nation with one of the oldest and richest cultures in the world, this has always been a hard reality to accept. Iranians are not naturally submissive. They are educated, outspoken, creative, and proud. And that tension…has been building for years. What you are seeing now is not a “sudden riot.” It is the result of decades of frustration, humiliation, and repression finally boiling over.

At the end of December 2025, Iran’s currency (the rial) plunged to record lows against the US dollar. People were already struggling with runaway inflation and basic goods costing more every week, but the rial’s collapse suddenly made everyday life even harsher. Shops and markets shut down as merchants couldn’t afford to restock, prices skyrocketed, and families found it harder to put food on the table. This economic collapse has been building for years, but hit a tipping point late last December.

Once the protests spread beyond Tehran’s bazaar and into cities across all 31 provinces, they stopped being just about money, they became political. People are chanting not only for better living conditions, but against the oppressive regime itself.

In response, the government used their signature (and very coward) move: they pulled the plug on internet and phone networks nationwide. Starting at the end of last week, almost all mobile data and international internet access was cut off. Local networks either went down or were reduced to state-approved platforms only, and messaging apps that normally help people coordinate protests disappeared from public use. Blocking communications is a tactic the regime has used in past uprisings to make it harder for protesters to organize and for the world to see what’s happening.

The blackout has been massive: internet traffic inside the country dropped to near zero, and even messaging apps are unreachable without special tech. Only a tiny fraction of people using satellite hookups or underground tools can connect securely..

What’s next?

History shows that regimes like this don’t give up power easily. But what is clear is that something fundamental has changed. Millions of Iranians, especially the younger generation, are no longer afraid in the same way they used to be. Once that fear breaks, it never fully comes back.

Whether this leads to real change now or later, the message is already out there: the people of Iran do not see this government as their future. And even if the streets go quiet for a while, the anger, the hope, and the desire for freedom will not disappear.

The world just needs to keep watching and spreading the word, especially when Iran is forced into silence.