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heavy silence has descended upon the Iranian people – one marked by bloodshed. Their uprising, triggered on December 28, 2025, by the dramatic collapse of the national currency, has been brutally crushed in a wave of violence unlike any seen before. This is what can be pieced together from the first, hard-won testimonies. To this day, the toll of the crackdown remains impossible to verify, due to internet access being cut off as a prelude to the repression and, of course, due to the inability of journalists to work freely. But it promises to be severe.
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Behind Iran's brutal crackdown, rulers play for survival
By crushing a protest that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian himself had initially deemed legitimate, Iran's leadership has revealed its weakness. The protest movement, sparked by increasingly dire living conditions, quickly pointed to those responsible: a regime willing to sacrifice its people's future, and that regime's embodiment in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who is steering the country toward the abyss.
