Voices from inside Iran

0:00Today on State of the World, voices from inside Iran.

0:08You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close, where they're happening. It's Monday, February 2nd. I'm Greg Dixon. In Iran, protests have been ongoing for more than a month. The government there has cracked down hard. More than 6 ,000 people have died, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The internet and communications blackout across Iran is lifting somewhat. That's allowing videos of the violence to leak out. And we're beginning to hear from Iranians about what they've experienced. NPR's Jackie Northam brings us the stories of three Iranian women.

0:49Over the past few weeks, an NPR producer reached out to several people in Iran to tell their story. People were terrified by the brutal government crackdown and wouldn't allow us to record their voices. Eventually, three women did agree because they want the world to know what's happening in Iran, on the condition that we protect their identities. Their voices will be distorted and we won't use their names, but we'll identify them by what they do for a living. On January 8th, an unemployed content creator left her home in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran, and went out onto the street. She had heard Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former Shah of Iran, encouraged people to take part in the protests that were sweeping across the country.

1:33She says there were many people chanting anti-regime slogans. We saw so many people. People were there with their young kids, old parents, a man in a wheelchair. It was amazing. The groups kept getting bigger and more confident. I will never forget the ecstatic feeling I had when we lit the rotten flag of the Islamic Republic on fire. But then things started to get bad. The content creator says her 18-year-old neighbor was shot dead by security forces. Then government forces began to mow down protesters over the next few days. They have always been murderous, but this time it was way more extensive and more horrifying since they had orders to shoot directly.

2:21During the same time, a housewife interviewed by NPR says her husband left their house in Qaraj to join the protests. He never came back. She says she went to the morgue in Tehran. She was told she'd have to pay more than$6 ,000 to get her husband's body back and sign a document saying he was a member of the regime's paramilitary force, which he wasn't. They said if you contact anyone or tell anyone, we will take your daughters. The housewife says she and her daughters are very scared and don't dare leave their house. And yet, she says, people are still protesting. I hear my neighbors chant at night and sometimes very shortly on the street.

3:08But unfortunately, we don't go out anymore. Even being in the house is not safe, says a third woman NPR interviewed, who used to work in publishing. They are killing people in their homes. The other day in my alley, they pushed someone in the trunk of a car and kidnapped him. None of us dare to say anything, because I have seen they easily shoot. I don't want them to kill me. I really don't. I don't want them to shoot me. The former publishing worker remembers seeing one young protester shot dead. I saw blood in the street. That was a human being who wanted to live, who wanted to shout his rights.

3:51His shout was all he had. Is this the answer to cries? Bullets? Why doesn't anyone do anything? The housewife NPR interviewed thinks the protests, which began over anger at Iran's crumbling economy, haven't changed a thing. Nothing. The protests only cause more deaths. They shoot us and kill all the youth. Prices have gone even higher and we are poorer. But the content creator, interviewed by NPR, believes the protests must continue. I might go out and get killed, but whatever happens, there is one thing I know for sure. We have nowhere else to go. This is our home. And even if it can't happen for me, I want the generations after me to experience freedom.

4:41She says although so many lives have been lost, there's no reason to step back. Jackie Northam, NPR News.

4:53That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.