Nima went from serving coffee to fighting against the Iranian Government. The 24-year-old speaks to Stuff reporter Ripu Bhatia from his home in Tehran about life on the frontline.
Only a few months ago, Nima was working at a coffee shop and hostel in Tehran, but now he’s a soldier on the frontline, fighting the “oppressive Iranian regime”.
“It’s not a government, it’s a terrorist, mafia, fascist religious group who are the rulers of this country,” the 24-year-old says.
“They don’t have any respect for any basic human rights, whatsoever.”
Protests erupted across the country in September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was beaten by Guidance Patrol officers for violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law.
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Amini’s death sparked a series of protests in Iran calling for women’s right to freedom. Protesters have been arrested or beaten to death by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Hundreds have died in Iran during the unrest, including more than a dozen children. Anti-government protesters – including children – have also been tortured.
“Right now, if I want to tell you about the situation, … it’s like war,” Nima says.
“People are actually fighting, like normal people, university students, workers, just, you know, random dude who smokes weed, 24-year-old.”
Nima, who does not want his last name used, went to a protest where people were starting fires with explosives to try to close down a street.
“We would see 18-year-old girl, with a cocktail Molotov in her hand. People throwing a stone if they’re empty-handed,” he says.
“It’s getting more and more like a war between normal citizens and government forces.”
AP
Protests have erupted around Iran in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was beaten by the country’s morality police for wearing an “improper hijab”.
A revolution begins
Civil unrest has been widespread in Iran following the death of Amini on September 16.
Amini was arrested by Iran’s Guidance Patrol for wearing an “improper hijab” while visiting the capital of Tehran from her hometown, Saqqez.
Eyewitnesses claim Amini was severely beaten by officers, but Iranian authorities deny this.
“At the beginning, the news was coming out on social media and TVs everywhere, people in Mahsa Amini’s hometown started protesting,” says Nima.
“Then it was in Tehran and the citizens there, it was like a calling. A time and a date and a place for going out, a calling for protest.”
Nima attended protests early on with his friends and says the response from Iranian authorities was swift.
“The first day it was plastic bullets, tear gas and then so many arrests, so many people being killed and shot in the streets by the plastic bullets from close range into face, and even with batons.
“It’s like a hit-and-run,” he says, “the protests here are like parties, like you have to try and hit them and just run away.”
Iran is not new to civil unrest, and previous protests in 2019 to 2020 and in 2009 were violently quelled by authorities.
But Nima says this time people are fighting back.
“When we go out we really don’t know if we’re going to come back alive, if we’re going to get arrested, if we’re going to get shot,” he says.
“There’s no rule that these mother f…… go by, they do whatever they want.”
Elections and economic strife have been the cause of conflict in Iran in recent years, but the latest uprisings are about the oppression of women.
“It’s chaotic scenes to see and, you know, girls here have to wear hijab [but] nobody wears hijab any more. It’s like a civil rights fight, it’s disobedience,” says Nima.
“You just see all the girls in the street alongside the men, fighting.”
AP
Tehran resident Nima was working at coffee shops a few months ago, but now he’s fighting on the streets and says he won’t rest until the Islamic regime is overthrown. (File photo)
Former life forgotten
People from a range of social classes are taking part in the protests, united by a desire to topple the Islamic Republic.
“Many, many young people, like normal young people, who a few hours ago were just hanging out … a few hours later, we’re like soldiers going to fight,” says Nima.
Nima was working at a coffee shop and hostel before the uprising began. He attended the initial demonstrations before returning to his job.
But activists soon began lobbying people to go on strike to disrupt the economy.
“The country was kind of shut down. All the bazaars, bazaar is like a big shopping mall, many, many companies, they went into strike,” he explains.
“I quit my job as well, because the places I worked in, they didn’t choose to close down. I said, if you’re not closing down, I’m not going to come.”
Iranian authorities have implemented a nationwide internet blackout since September 19 and imposed restrictions on social media sites.
“Fighting has different aspects, like we’re not using the apps that are built by this regime,” Nima says.
“People are not buying anything from the big malls that they know are connected to the government, so people are trying to shut down the economy.”
Nima says people are giving up everything to focus on the revolution.
“For me right now, it’s that – it’s just every day waking up and preparing myself better and better.
“To go and try to think with my friends of the better thing we can do, how to fight.”
Richard Vogel/AP
People around the world have rallied to show support for the uprisings in Iran.
Death of Yalda Aghafazli
“Her name went really viral, really fast, and part of that, I think, was because of the friends that she had, [and] I was one of them,” says Nima.
Iranian activist Yalda Aghafazli was just 19 when she died earlier this month, a few days after being released from a detention centre in Tehran where she was held for protesting.
“She was actually arrested on the 40s of Mahsa Amini – a traditional grief ceremony in Iran where for every person who dies, after 40 days there is another ceremony,” Nima said.
Yalda was detained for 11 days and died two days after her release.
“There’s her voice messages … talking to her friends and telling them about how she was tortured, how she was beaten up,” Nima says. “How they would put this spray that you would put for self-defence, a spicy spray, they would put that on her eyes.”
In her voice messages, Aghafazli told her friends, she never showed any sign of regret.
“When they take you in jail, they try by torture to take forced confessions from you,” Nima said.
“She was saying on her voice message, I didn’t say I’m regretting, I didn’t confess to anything I haven’t done,”
Nima says he hit rock bottom following Aghafazli’s death, but her story is inspiring more people to join the protests.
“After her death, many of my friends, including myself, are more angry, even trying harder.
“For me personally, I don’t care any more if I die or not, but this regime has to go.”
Vahid Salemi/AP
Iranian women are playing a key role in the protests, refusing to wear their hijabs in public in defiance of the country’s mandatory hijab law.
Looking ahead
An Iranian court handed out the first death sentence to a protester connected to the uprisings earlier this month.
Four more people were sentenced to death last week on a charge of “enmity against God” for participating in protests.
“Many people have died in prison without any court, they’ve been just tortured and died and buried in unknown places,” says Nima. “I prefer to die in the streets than be caught.”
At least 348 protesters have been killed and 15,900 others arrested by Iranian security forces, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRAN).
Last month the New Zealand Government moved a motion to condemn the violent crackdown on women-led protests in Iran, and called for an investigation into the deaths of people in custody.
In October, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta also joined women foreign ministers of 12 nations in a joint statement condemning the violent actions that led to 22-year-old Amini’s death. She reiterated calls for an impartial and independent investigation into the government’s use of force against protesters.
Nima says his message for people is to educate themselves on what’s happening in the world.
“The way they look at the Ukrainian situation or what happened in the South African revolution when all the world supported Mandela, that’s what we need” he said.
“This revolution started with killing a girl for not wearing her hijab, and the biggest chant of this movement is, it describes itself in the best way: women, life, freedom.”
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